


Learning to Flinch

by dragonmactir



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Doctor Strange (Comics), Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-11-16 01:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11243994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonmactir/pseuds/dragonmactir
Summary: An old warrior travels far into the Frostbacks, looking for a suitable place far from humanity to die.  There he encounters a strange man, who comes to him with a stranger proposition: he will teach him the mystic arts if in exchange he will pass this knowledge on to others in his own dimension.  He's not buying it.  Can the doctor bring him to an acceptance of the natural powers around and within him before it is too late?





	1. A Cold Day in Hell...

It was an exhausting journey.  He’d trudged many long miles, up and down the rugged Frostback mountains, with no destination in mind other than to get as far away from anywhere he knew there to be settlements or people as possible.  He hadn’t even seen an Avvar clan in several days of travel.  Perhaps… perhaps he was nearing the place at last.  He came to a snowcapped peak and stood on trembling legs and peered through the whipping snow all around himself.  Visibility was low.  There was a small hollow area just right to curl up in nearby.  Yes, this looked to be a good place.  No one would ever find him here, not soon enough for it to ever matter, at least.

 

He let out a long breath of relief and tamped his walking stick against the snow-covered rock.  Not the end he’d ever envisioned for himself, but how many get to choose their deaths?  It was better than the alternative.  He sat down in the hollow spot and set to building a fire to cook his final meal.  It was difficult to make the little chimney of tinder and long-toted wood catch fire in such high winds, but he was something of an expert at camping out.  He’d lived in the wide open for most of his life, barring the thirty or so years he’d lived as an unhappy nobleman.

 

Soon the rabbit he’d killed was sizzling over a decent fire.  He had little attention to spare for anything else, and what else would there be on the peak of a mountain out in the middle of nowhere, anyway?  Korth the Mountain-Father?  So the well-cultured voice came as something of a surprise.

 

“Mind if I share your fire?  I’m rather ill-dressed for this sort of weather.”

 

He was shocked, yes, but he suppressed his reaction and only looked up and sneered at the man in the blue tunic and leggings with the red-lined cloak thrown back over his shoulders.  “Well, don’t you look a little fey?  What Orlesian dance party were _you_ thrown out of?” he said.

 

The man merely smiled a thin smile that did not move his neat moustache and goatee combination in the slightest.  “Stephen Strange, at your service.  _Doctor_ Stephen Strange.”

 

“Strange you are.  What the fuck are you doing up here?”

 

“I might ask of you the very same question.  Surely this is no place for you.”

 

“I go where I will.”

 

“As do I,” Strange said, with the sweep of a hand.  He had scars on the back of that hand, bad ones, but very neat, like those made by a healer of great skill but no magic.

 

“Sit down before you freeze to death,” he said, gesturing at his fire.  “Damn straight you’re not dressed for this weather.  If you’re going to go traipsing about the mountains you should do so prepared.”

 

“I do not intend to stay long,” Strange said, sitting down gracefully, sweeping his cloak aside with the other hand.  His other hand bore the same sort of scars.  “I come with a message for you.”

 

He bit deeply into his rabbit and chewed while giving the strange Strange man the cold eye.  “You have a message for me?  You came all the way out here, dressed like that, looking for me?  You don’t even know who I am.”

 

“Of course I do, Loghain.”

 

He gave Strange a cold, hard look from beneath his still-forbidding black brows.  “All right, faerie boy.  Who sent you?  What’s the trick?”

 

“I came here by myself, on my own account, and there is no trick, though if you want I can pull an egg from your ear and make it turn into a chicken.”

 

“Just tell me what the fuck it is you want.”

 

“Temper temper.  I’m here to recruit you.  To offer to teach you.  I’ve never gone outside my own dimension before, but this is a special case.  Your own world does not have sorcerers like myself.  It relies too heavily upon natural-born magic, emanating from the connected dimension you call the ‘Fade.’  Drawing magic from another dimension is very dangerous.  Your dimension needs a system of sorcerers trained in the mystic arts who draw upon the energies of the natural world around themselves, not upon powers from another world entirely.  I will teach you, and you will teach others.  Agreeable?”

 

He gave the man a disgusted, gape-mouthed look.  “You’ve got your feelers crossed, Strange,” he said at last.  “You’re telling me you’re some kind of mage.  You’re looking for another mage, right?  I’m no mage.  I’m a warrior.  A useless, rotted-out hulk of a warrior.  I can’t learn magic.  Go peddle your bullshit to someone who cares.  Let me die in peace.”

 

Strange leaned in over the fire.  “Tell me, Loghain: why didn’t you go to your Calling?” he asked, brown eyes glittering.

 

He drew back.  “How did…?  Grrr… I… I never got it.  I just got weaker and weaker, little by little, until finally I couldn’t hold my sword up anymore.  It seemed to me then that my choices were go to the Deep Roads and die like a pussy to the first darkspawn to take a swing at me, or find a quiet, out of the way place to collapse somewhere that no one would ever find me.  I chose the latter.  I may die without dignity, but I’d prefer my peers never see it.”

 

“You can find your strength again.  Within magic.  Magic exists within all minds.  It is only a matter of harnessing the power of will.  And will is something you have in spades.”

 

“Go fuck yourself, Pollyanna.”

 

Strange drew back, and clapped his hands on his knees.  “Well, I didn’t expect to get through to you right away.  You have, after all, a well-deserved reputation for stubbornness.  However, it will take you some time to freeze to death, given the amount of insulation in your furs, and it may get rather tedious, so perhaps I could leave you with something?  A book.”  He held out a leather-bound volume that appeared in his hand quite suddenly from nowhere.  “I believe you will find it interesting reading, and dabbling with its incantations might make for an eye-opening experience.  At the very least, it will help you pass the time.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll pass a bowel movement and wipe my ass with the pages,” he grumbled, as he grabbed the book with no graciousness at all.

 

Strange merely smiled all the broader.  “Good day to you, Sir.  Should you wish to find me, come to Haven.  I have set up in a small house near the Inquisition Memorial at the edge of town.”


	2. Curiosity Killed The...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A doubter starts to believe. Sort-of.

In the end it was a very natural stimulus that drove him down from the mountains.  Curiosity.  He was rather too well-dressed for the mountains to freeze to death swiftly, and he certainly wasn’t going to starve any time soon, and it was rather boring sitting curled up there in his little hollow spot in the snow, and finally he couldn’t help himself any longer and flipped open the cover of the book, titled “A beginner’s Guide to Spells and Incantations.”  Balderdash, in his considered opinion.

 

He opened to a random page at the beginning of the book.  “To create fire from your fingers.”  Useful spell, that, if you wanted singed fingers.  Nice thing about it, it said in the book that you didn’t have to say the ludicrous incantation aloud, you only needed to concentrate on the words in your head.  And “feel them coursing through your arms and out through your fingers.”  What utter rubbish!  _Feel_ it out through your fingers, _FEEL it out through your fingers, FEEL IT OUT THROUGH YOUR FINGERS!_

 

The book caught fire.  He dropped it into the snow and pounded out the flames with his hands.  He sat there lost in thought, wondering exactly what had just happened.  Some sort of trick orchestrated by that Strange fellow?

 

Consideration brought him to the realization that all the while he was deriding the incantation in his mind, he was thinking the incantation in his mind at the same time.  He’d always done things like that -- his mind always had three or four thoughts, often unrelated, whirling around in it at the same time.  Did that mean he had somehow set the book on fire himself?  Ludicrous.

 

He flipped to a different page.  A spell of levitation.  He didn’t know exactly what the word “levitation” meant, but it sounded safer than fire.  Kind of sounded like making people laugh, which… really sounded useless, really, but… well, whatever.  He read the incantation and concentrated, and the book, still laying singed in the snow, rose off the ground a few inches.  He’d never even seen a Circle mage do something like that.  He lost concentration immediately and the book dropped like a brick, the pages fluttering.

 

He stopped and thought for a long time.  This… actually seemed real, odd at it was to think about it.  He tried another few spells.  A spell of ice -- hard to tell if it worked in the current environment -- a spell of growing, from which a small white mountain flower grew in the snow for a few moments until he broke concentration, when it withered and died in the cold.  He pondered the frozen petals with the gears of his brain grinding.  This… this was worth investigating further… but he was certainly not ready to go running to this Strange fellow, begging for training.

 

He went to Haven because Haven was by far the closest Ferelden settlement.  The Avvar might have been closer, but they had no permanent settlements.  The village had been rebuilt after the avalanche that destroyed it some years ago, not entirely upon the bones of the former settlement.  He found a small house on the edge of the village that no one was using and claimed it for himself.  The taint still in his veins helped him with his claim -- no one contested it because of the strange, menacing “I’m a Grey Warden don’t fuck with me” aura it gave him.  He never left the house except to hunt or to barter, and he never once saw anyone in the village who looked anything like Strange, with his silver-shot hair and his well-trimmed goatee and moustache.  He would have thought it was all an elaborate lie if it weren’t for the fact that his continued perusal of the book the man had given him continued to produce viable results.

 

He didn’t understand.  He wasn’t a mage.  It was impossible that he could do any of this.  Strange was playing with him somehow, from a distance, trying to make him buy this claptrap for his own reasons.  He should have stayed in the mountains, died with some residual dignity.  Becoming the toy of some pissant mage was beneath him.

 

He wasn’t in his new home for very long before there was a knock on the door.  He ignored it, if course.  He didn’t want to meet his new neighbors and he most certainly wouldn’t be joining the Sisters for services at the Chantry.  The knock came louder, hard enough to rattle the door in its frame.  He looked up, grabbed his walking stick and stumped over to throw the door open.

 

“Yeah, what in blazes do you wa--”

 

No one was there, not even footprints.  He looked around in suspicion.  He looked down.  On the stoop was a small wooden box.  He looked around again for observers, then used the levitation spell to bring it to his hand and quickly ducked back into his house.

 

He opened the box and a piece of parchment fluttered out.  He grabbed it out of the air and read it.  “Wear this always” was written upon it in an elegant, flowing hand.  Inside the box, on a lining of black velvet, was a shining, silver or similarly-colored metal medallion on a short chain.  The medallion was in the shape of a cross of equal lengths, and was studded with clear stones like diamonds or similar.  He was no expert on gemstones.  He didn’t want to wear the damned thing.  It looked like something a woman should wear.  He threw the box down on a side table across the room and crumpled the note in his hand.

 

Something hard and heavy, like a brick, struck the top of his head.  _“Shit!”_ he said, and felt his head for blood.  Instead, he felt another piece of parchment.  He looked at it.

 

 _“Just wear it, stupid-ass,”_ it read.

 

“All right, all right,” he said, looking around and above him.  “I’ll wear it.  Geez, you don’t have to hit me over the head with it.”

 

He took the medallion and unfastened the chain, which worked by a powerful magnet in the front, holding the medallion and chain together.  He put it around his neck and fastened it again.  “All right, you satisfied?  I’ve got it on,” he said to the air around him.

 

A new piece of parchment fluttered out of the air before him.  He snatched it up.  _“Thank you,”_ it read.  _“Now you may go back to your practicing.”_

 

“Not going to tell me what it’s for?  Fine.  Not that curious, anyway.”

 

He spent the next few weeks practicing, learning, not believing anything he seemed to be doing.  After all, it seemed he was being watched, as the medallion and the messages proved; there was every good chance that the magic was being performed by this Strange mage, too.  It wouldn’t be good to fall too far under his spell.  Mages were dangerous, and who knew what game this one was playing?

 

In the meanwhile, however, the book and its spells were interesting.  He no longer had to spend any time at all in starting a fire in the fireplace.  Bending over or picking up heavy things was no longer necessary thanks to levitation, and he could even grow his own food instantly simply by bartering for seeds at the market.  As he delved deeper and deeper into the book, it became harder to hold onto his skepticism.  He took to taking long walks through the village, huddled in his furs and leaning hard on his stick.

 

He stopped on the edge of town on one of these walks, leaned on his stick, and stared hard at a tiny, apparently abandoned house near the memorial stone by the gates of the village.  The door was closed and bolted from the inside.  Someone walked past him.  He tapped them on the shoulder and they jumped.

 

“Who lives in that house?” he asked, with a nod in that direction.

 

“That house?  I-I-I don’t know, Ser,” they said, and scurried away.

 

He stood and looked at the house for a few moments longer, then walked up to it and peered through one of the windows.  There was no furniture, and all inside was dust and cobwebs.  Abandoned.  He knocked on the door.  No answer.  With a growl of disgust, he returned to his own house.

 

But he kept walking the village, day after day, and he kept coming back to stare at that tiny abandoned house.  Finally, around about the time he learned how to make himself invisible, he came back to the front door and knocked once more.  This time, it opened.  He didn’t see anyone on the other side, but he knew that the Strange man was there.

 

“I’m… ready,” he said, and passed a hand back across his hair.  “I think.”

 

The door opened wider.  That well-cultured voice came from within, its owner still unseen.  "Welcome.  We've been waiting for you."


	3. Learning to Flinch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How about a little fire, Scarecrow?

The house looked no different from the inside than from the outside. Tiny, barren, dusty, filled with cobwebs.  He could see no one when the door closed behind him.  “Where are you?” he asked the emptiness.  “Don’t toy with me.”

 

“I’m right here,” the voice said.

 

“Where?”

 

“Here,” the voice said again, and the Strange man stepped out of the wall at the back of the room where there was nothing before. Loghain scowled.

 

“Don’t do that to me. I said don’t toy.”

 

“I am not toying. I merely do not wish to be seen by the townspeople.  They would not understand.”

 

“Oh. I expect they wouldn’t.  You wear ‘fruitcake mage’ like a badge of honor.”

 

Strange closed his eyes and smiled thinly. When he opened his eyes again, he gestured to the back of the room.  “Will you walk with me?  We have much to discuss.”

 

“Walk where? This is a one-room house and it’s an eight-by-six room.”

 

“Size is meaningless. It is what you wish to do with what you have that matters.”

 

 _“Ha!_ I tried telling that to my first girl.  She didn’t buy it.”

 

“Just… walk with me, please.”

 

They began walking. The house didn’t seem to get any bigger, and they didn’t seem to be motionless -- nevertheless, they never ran out of house to walk in as Strange spoke.  It was an eerie feeling, like walking in a Fade dream.

 

“I know you still have reservations about the mystic arts,” Strange said. “It is understandable, given the culture you were raised in.  Magic is something to be feared and hated, in your world.  In my world, magic is no longer a thing in which we believe.  That was very difficult for myself to overcome, as you can imagine.  In many worlds, it is the same.  Magic is either feared or no longer believed.  There are very few dimensions in which it is fully accepted and embraced.  This was one of them, once upon a time long past.”

 

“When the Tevinters ruled,” Loghain said, wrinkling his beak of a nose.

 

“No no. The Tevinters have always drawn their magic from the Fade, another realm just as any other of your born mages.  The influence of the thin divide between this dimension and your own gives rise to random or, in the case of the Tevinters, bred children of almost all races with magical abilities drawn from that realm.  But sorcery is different.  Sorcery draws upon the magic around and within you, the magic that is naturally possessed within your own realm, and anyone may tap into it.  No natural talent required.  It was the ancient elves that knew and accepted this.”

 

“So they were all sorcerers?”

 

“Indeed. They were open to the mysteries and secrets of the natural world, and so the world opened itself to them.  If you are only willing to open your own mind, the same thing will happen for you.”

 

“What’s the point?” he asked.

 

“What do you mean, what’s the point?” Strange asked. “Haven’t you striven all your life long to be more than you could be?  I am giving you the greatest opportunity of all to ever become more than you could be before, opening up whole entire new worlds to you.  Isn’t that enough?”

 

“I’m an old man, on the edge of death. I repeat, what’s the point?  Even if I am capable of this kind of learning, I don’t have the time.”

 

“You have plenty of time. Just as size is immaterial, age also is of no consequence.”

 

“So you can stop death, then?”

 

“No, but I can halt time.”

 

“Halt time.”

 

“Yes. I can, if I so desire, even rewind time, so that you are restored to youth and strength again.”

 

“Is that so? But you, of course, do not so desire.”

 

“Time is a dangerous thing. Play with it too much and dangerous things happen.  I could do that for you, but only within the confines of a secure place.  Step outside that secure place, and time would have to be what it truly is.  It would not be good for you not to know how to defend yourself physically within the confines of your _current_ limitations.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“I see you rolling your eyes. You don’t believe me.  I can show you, but only for a short time.  Then I must return time to its normal standard.”  He paused, passed his hands before the golden amulet he wore like an eyeball on his chest, and the world seemed to twist around itself.  Suddenly Loghain felt taller, straighter, healthier, without the aches and pains of decades of hard living and harder fighting.

 

“So, you gave me a magical pain powder,” he said, determined to be skeptical, but Strange merely pointed to the braid resting on his shoulder. Instead of iron grey, that heavy twisted lock of hair was dark black, without a whisper of white in it.  Strange handed over a looking glass he conjured out of nowhere, and the face in that mirror was unlined, untouched by the pain and care that had marked him throughout life.  He handed the mirror back with a certain aggressiveness.  “All right, you’ve turned back the hands of time.  Very impressive.  Too bad you can’t hold it that way. _That_ would be worth something to me.”

 

“When you are a master of the arcane arts, you will not require the reversal of time to feel vital and healthy. By the by, you no longer require the amulet I gave you.  You _should_ wear it, but it is no longer a necessity,”  Strange said as he started walking again.

 

Loghain fingered the diamond-studded medallion that hung around his throat. “Ah, shit.  I’m used to the damn thing, now,” he said, and left it on.  “What’s it for, anyway?”

 

“Casting magic at a basic level draws upon the psychic energy within you,” Strange said. “This ages you prematurely.  The amulet you wear is a very basic tool of beginning sorcerers.  It is a very powerful repository of that same sort of psychic energy, and replenishes itself automatically.  When it is worn, the magic caster draws power from it instead of themselves, thus having an easily replenished and virtually inexhaustible source of magical power.  Master sorcerers know the art of replenishing their own powers, and how to draw power from other places.  They do not require such objects any longer.”

 

“So you gave me this so I wouldn’t kill myself before you could get your clutches on me, eh?” Loghain said, giving Strange the wary eye.

 

“In a word, yes.”

 

“Are we ever going to get anywhere with all this walking in this tiny little house?”

 

“I thought you liked to walk. After all, you’re the one who walked all those many miles simply to find a suitable place to lay down and die.”

 

“Very funny, Serah Strange.”

 

“Well, if you do not wish to walk, it is hardly necessary.” They stopped again, but this time something else seemed to happen.  The house, which never had seemed to get any larger, nevertheless seemed to collapse upon them until it was normal-sized, which was what it had appeared to be the whole time.  Loghain flinched even as he recoiled from the entire concept.  It didn’t make any sense.  It didn’t happen.

 

“All right, so you can bend time and stretch space,” he said, trying to pretend he wasn’t frightened by it all. “What other fancy tricks have you got to show me?”

 

“Many, and I will teach them all to you. But not here.  It would be too dangerous, even for me, and all my resources are within my sanctum in my own dimension.  It would be better for both of us if I were to teach you there.”

 

“You want to teach me magic in… another world? But I thought you wanted me to use the magic that was in my _own_ world.”

 

“Your world and mine are metaphysically similar. It’s not exact, because of the thinness of the Veil between your dimension and that of the Fade dimension, but it is, as we say in parts of my world, ‘Close enough for government work.’  You will be able to do everything you need to do in both worlds once you’ve mastered what I’ve taught you in mine.  We have all the time we need.  I have stopped the progression of time in your world.”

 

“What? But I thought you said messing with time was dangerous.”

 

“It is. But it is also necessary.  Evil days are coming.  It is why sorcerers are such a grave necessity now in your dimension.  Your mages have kept certain… influences at bay for a great long while, but they will not be enough to stop it should the tide of that evil wash over this world.  Only a Sorcerer Supreme, and the Master Sorcerers who fight along with them, can manage that task and save this world.”

 

“So what happens to all the people whose lives are just… stopped?” Loghain asked.

 

“Nothing. They’re not even aware of it.”

 

“If they’re stopped, why aren’t we stopped, too?”

 

“Because we stand outside of time.”

 

Loghain shook his head hard. “Blah blah blah, I’m sorry I asked.”

 

“Do not deride as foolish a question simply because you do not understand the answer,” Strange said. “Here, step outside a moment.”

 

He opened the door, and Loghain walked back out into the village of Haven. It was quiet, as it typically was, but something was off.  There was no sound, no sound at all.  No rustle of branches in the breeze.  No chirping of birds or insects, no ominous sounds of snow shifting and settling on the mountains above.  And no one talking, not at the smithy, not at the market stall, and not in any of the houses.  Nowhere.  The blacksmith was arrested at his forge mid-hammer, the iron on the anvil still glowing hot.  The merchant was simply standing there, one hand on his table and the other stretched out pointing to his display of artichokes for an elderly lady who was also completely frozen still.  Several people were stalled in the middle of taking steps, one foot lifted, balanced precariously on the other alone.

 

Loghain felt a wild panic animal cut loose in his chest and begin to gnaw at his insides. He spun around in the middle of this horror show and shouted, “All right!  End this, already!  Enough!”

 

“I can’t. It’s too late to go back, Loghain.  The only way out is forward.”

 

“What do you want with me, anyway? Why on this good green earth would _I_ be your first choice for something like this?  Why not someone younger, smarter, more teachable?  Why me, eh?  Why me?”

 

“Believe me, I asked myself why it had to be you for a very long time indeed,” Strange said. “The simple answer is, it had to be you.  There was no one else suitable for the job.  I don’t need a master sorcerer.  Anyone can be a master sorcerer.  I need a Sorcerer Supreme.”

 

“And what makes you think I’m ‘Sorcerer Supreme’ material?” Loghain said. “Sounds like a lot of learning to me.  When I was a boy, my mother taught me to read and to write, and just that much was illegal.  When Maric proposed to make me Teyrn he forced politics and foreign languages down my throat ‘til I thought I would vomit.  I just barely made any sense out of any of it.  Now you want me to learn what promises to be the most complicated thing I’ve ever had to learn in my life, and you want me to learn it so well that not only will I be able to teach it to others, but I will be _superior_ to all others?  Bullshit.”

 

“You didn’t _want_ to learn politics and foreign languages,” Strange said.  “You are, quite frankly, the most stubborn ass in this or many other dimensions, and I mean that literally.  I’ve never before seen someone like you.  You have limitless potential, but you squander it.”

 

 _“I_ squander my potential?” Loghain said.  “I’d like to hear how you justify that statement.”

 

“You could have made a real difference for the world of Thedas. Instead, you were content to stop at setting your nation free.  You felt for the elves, but you did nothing for their plight.  You knew the Orlesian cultural hierarchy was an evil thing, but you did nothing about it once it lay beyond Fereldan borders.  You could have been King, and brought peace and prosperity to at least one nation, but you did not, and instead let yourself be used by a King who wanted his own glory increased through murder and violence.”

 

“That’s how monarchy works. If you don’t do that, your King dies,” Loghain said.

 

“There are other ways by which to rule.”

 

“I never said I had any answers. The one time I tried to guide the nation just through one crisis I fucked things up so righteously I lost everything.”

 

“You relied too heavily on the guidance of others. Just as you’ve always done.  You stand alone as a being, but as a leader you remain uncertain of yourself despite your many victories.  You have more than enough intelligence to solve virtually any problem you may encounter on your own.  All you require is knowledge.  And for that, you must desire to learn.  I cannot teach you if you are going to be a stubborn ass about this.”

 

Loghain looked around himself at the frozen people again and felt that gnawing fear start up in his breast again and tamped it back down. He swallowed and licked his lips.  “Can we go back inside?  I don’t like looking at this out here.”

 

“Are you ready to let go? Are you ready to trust me and learn from me?” Strange asked.

 

“I’m… I’m ready to try,” Loghain said.

 

“Then follow me,” Strange said, and entered the house once more.


	4. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loghain meets Professor X

Loghain was able to breathe easier once they were back in the tiny house, away from the sight of the frozen townspeople. He collapsed backwards against the closed door and slumped to the floor with his eyes closed.

 

“Please. We have much yet to accomplish,” Strange said.

 

Loghain opened one eye and looked at him. “When you first opened the door for me, you said ‘we’ were expecting me.  Did you mean ‘we’ in the royal sense, or is there someone else hiding here I can’t see?”

 

“I am the only one here, but you will meet others. I was not speaking of only myself.  For the time being, however, myself and Master Wong are the only ones you need worry about.  We will be your teachers.”

 

“Wong?”

 

“That is correct.”

 

“Don’t you mean ‘That’s _wight?’”_

 

“Wong doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, particularly regarding his name. Fair warning.”

 

“Should I be afraid?”

 

“He will be handling the physical aspects of your training, so… yes, perhaps you should.”

 

“I’m shaking all over,” Loghain said.

 

Strange smiled. “You are no longer the warrior you once were.  You yourself have admitted it.”

 

“True, but I’ve been through the Void and back again. I’m not afraid of anything this _Wong_ has to throw at me.  Don’t know what kind of ‘physical training’ you expect to put me through at this late date, but I suppose I’m up for whatever you’ve got.”

 

“Good. Some may call it hubris, but a good, solid ego isn’t necessarily a bad place for a sorcerer to start.  Most of us start with one.  It isn’t easy to let go of it, but that is another thing we must learn.  In that, I’m afraid I am still a student myself.”

 

“I thought you were ‘Sorcerer Supreme.’”

 

“Of my particular dimension, but I remain a student. I am Sorcerer Supreme somewhat by default, you see.  The former Sorcerer Supreme, my master, perished in a battle with evil forces.  Saving _my_ life.  There were other master sorcerers aside from myself, but somehow the title passed to me, I barely fathom how.  I was her choice for successor.  It was her will.  But there is still much about the mystic arts I do not know.  Which is why Wong will teach you as well as I.  Wong is also a student as well as a teacher.  Most sorcerers are.  Once you become a master and pass your knowledge on, you may find one of your students may surpass you in some area, and they become your teacher.  Likely as not, your education will never end until your death.”

 

“Which you claim won’t be until somewhat longer from now than I naturally expect.”

 

“If you study well, yes.”

 

“Becoming a sorcerer naturally extends your life?”

 

“In ways. I myself am ninety-three years old, and have used no spell nor other means of extending my life unnaturally.”

 

“Ninety-three?” Loghain looked the man up and down.  Except for the silver at his temples and shot through his goatee, he appeared a hale and hearty forty or so.  “You’re very well-preserved.”

 

“That is what sorcery does for you. I came to it in my middle age, however.  You may require more advanced magic to regain your vitality.  Spells you will come to later.”

 

“Spells you won’t cast on me yourself.”

 

“No.”

 

“You can, but you won’t.”

 

“Actually, most of them must be cast by the subject, and some are beyond my knowledge as of yet. In any event, it sets a goal for your future, and that is a good thing.”

 

Strange approached the back wall. “As I told you, this dimension is not safe for your studies, and all my resources, as well as my home itself, are in my own dimension.  If you are ready, we should go there now.  Time may be halted, but it remains… ‘of the essence.’”

 

“How long can you keep time halted?”

 

“As long as I have to, but it isn’t safe now. Now that I’ve halted time, it has become obvious to certain powers beyond this dimension that… that you are indeed this dimension’s answer to its sorcerer-less condition.  Those powers will not want you to gain the knowledge necessary for you to become Sorcerer Supreme.  They will come for you, no matter what dimension you are in, even within the safety of my sanctum.  I can protect you far better there than anywhere, but still they will try.  You must learn the magic necessary to protect yourself as quickly as possible.”

 

“All right. I suppose we’d better go, then.”

 

“Precisely.” Strange made a gesture at the back wall, and a door appeared in it.  The design on this door was distinctive, a circle within which were four lines, two of which ran from north to southeast, and two of which ran east  to southwest.  In between the lines the wood was lighter in color.

 

“So. The other world is… right through that door, then?” Loghain said, trying not to sound bemused.

 

“My sanctum is right through that door,” Strange said. “I could easily open a rift to the other dimension anywhere.  All other worlds exist all around all of us.  Ordinary people simply do not usually know it.  That is where your dimension is almost unique in its connection to the dimension called the Fade.”

 

“Ah. I can see where that would become dangerous.”

 

“Exactly. Any unscrupulous sorcerer or even mage can raise havoc, and there are greater powers than that out there.  That is why Sorcerers Supreme are necessary.”

 

“So why haven’t we had any before now?”

 

“That I am not certain of. Certainly the Ancient One -- my master -- considered bringing her teachings to your dimension in the past, for I have read her journals looking for further knowledge after her death.  Why she failed to do this I do not know, but the restrictions of the Chantry bothered her a great deal.  Perhaps she feared for the safety of her potential students.”

 

He waved a hand toward the door. “Shall we take this discussion somewhere more comfortable?”

 

Loghain climbed up off the floor. “I expect that would be nice,” he said.

 

Strange opened the door in the back wall. Beyond, where there should be nothing but dirt and snow, was a grand foyer, with a curving stairwell leading up to a double mezzanine.  “Your… what did you call it?  Your ‘sanctuary?’” Loghain asked.

 

“My sanctum. There are several throughout my world, all connected through doors like this one.  Each are tended by a master sorcerer, but all are protected by the Sorcerer Supreme.  Please, feel free to enter.  My lounge is just up the stairs to the right.”

 

“All right, lead the way, Teacher.”

 

“You have to go first, so that I may close the portal behind us,” Strange said.

 

Loghain drew a deep breath through his nose and let it out hard through his mouth. He squared his shoulders as best he could and strode through the door without leaning very hard on his walking stick.  He looked around the foyer as Strange walked through behind him, closed the door, and made it disappear, revealing a more ordinary set of double doors of solid dark mahogany.  Elegant light fixtures lined the walls and a huge crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.  The entire place spoke of the opulence of an Orlesian manor.

 

“Apparently there’s good money in sorcery,” Loghain said, sourly.

 

“Actually, there’s no salary at all, and I am quite destitute,” Strange said, jovially enough. “However, when one can manipulate space and time, money is as meaningless as anything else in this world.  I can make my home look any way I want it to.  That said, this sanctum looks almost exactly the way it did when I inherited it.  It’s been blown up a time or two, but I have only restored it, not changed it in any significant way.  I have now _added_ a few things for your comfort and pleasure, however.”

 

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

 

“Historical attractions. Part of the function of this place is to serve as a museum of sorts.  It always did feature historical depictions of the history of this dimension.  I have added historical depictions of your own.”

 

“Ah. Well, thanks.”

 

“Right this way,” Strange said, gesturing with the wave of an arm up the stairs. Loghain stumped after him, wheezing, and sank into an armchair with some relief.  “May I offer you something to drink?  Wine?  Ale?  Tea?”

 

“Water, please, if you have it.”

 

Strange handed him an empty glass and clear liquid suddenly filled it. Loghain looked at it suspiciously.  “It’s pure water, don’t be afraid,” Strange said.

 

Loghain took a tentative sip. “All right, when does the teaching begin?” he said.

 

“There is one thing I think we should do first,” Strange said.

 

“Oh? And what is that?”

 

“You are closed off. Extremely.  I’m not even speaking of close-minded, I mean literally closed-off, to society, to family, to new ideas, to _old_ ideas.  You don’t let anything in, because you don’t want to be hurt.  I believe we need to get to the root of this problem and sort out why this is and heal your psyche before anything else can be done.  I am a neurologist, not a psychiatrist, so I have called in a friend to help with this problem.  He is an extremely talented natural telepath.  Breaking in to your mind to get to the core of your problems is not necessarily the gentlest way to go about this, but it is the swiftest, and as I said, time is of the essence.  Will you allow this?”

 

Loghain was taken aback. “I… is this what ‘telepaths’ do?  Break into the mind like blood mages?”

 

“Not like blood mages. It uses no magic, no possession.  Your will remains your own.”

 

“Well, I…” He swallowed hard.  “Do what you think you have to, I suppose.”

 

“Thank you. Professor?  We’re ready for you.”

 

A man appeared in the room, simply appeared. He was older, a well-preserved seventy or so, completely bald, and seated in a strange wheeled contraption of metal.  “Stephen,” he said.  “Your summonses could come with greater warning.”

 

“You knew I was going to call for you,” Strange said.

 

“But I didn’t know when,” the man said. His voice had the same cultured tone as Strange, but a different accent underlying it.  “I was in the middle of teaching a class full of young, frightened mutants when I suddenly vanished.”

 

“Don’t worry, time is stopped, so they won’t know that you ever left them,” Strange said. “Professor Charles Francis Xavier, I would like to introduce you to my new student, Loghain Mac Tir.  Loghain, this is Charles Francis Xavier, arguably one of the most powerful mutants and _certainly_ one of the most influential in our dimension.”

 

“What’s a mutant?” Loghain asked.

 

“A human being born with unique appearance and/or abilities through genetic aberration,” Xavier said. “Similar to your mages in practice.  We are hated for something we cannot help.”

 

“You know about my world?” Loghain asked.

 

“Just what Stephen has told me.”

 

“Your elves and dwarves never throw out mutants, then?” Loghain asked.

 

Stephen chuckled. “Our dimension does not have elves nor dwarves, nor qunari, either.  Only humans.  You might think that would spare us a great deal of stress, but humans cannot get along with themselves any better than they can get along with others, I fear.”

 

“Well, shall we proceed, then?” Xavier said.

 

“Momentarily,” Strange said. “There is something I would like to discuss with you privately, Xavier.  It will only take a moment.”

 

“Privately? In another room, or…?”

 

“Telepathically will work just fine,” Strange said.

 

“Very well,” Xavier said.

 

 _What did you wish to discuss, Stephen?_ Xavier said.  On the astral plane, he no longer required his hover chair.

 

_Tactics, my friend. As you know, I myself have the ability to use telepathy, though I am not a natural telepath like yourself._

_Yes, I had wondered about that. I wondered why you needed me for this when you possessed the necessary magic to do it yourself._

_I have tried to touch minds with Loghain many times in the past. Although I have been able to watch him from a distance, I cannot enter his mind.  The instant I try, he puts up a mental wall that is as strong as any I have ever encountered.  It is, however, a wall, and not a fortress.  If you are unable to get through it yourself, I believe you will be able to keep him distracted from the front well enough for me to enter his mind undetected from the rear._

Xavier was clearly uncomfortable. _I don’t know about this. This seems unnecessarily… brutal.  It may cause more harm than good.  Isn’t your goal to_ heal _his psyche?_

_Sometimes you must break a bone in order that it may be reset properly,_ Strange’s astral projection said. _If we do not reach into the core of Loghain’s mind and find the truth of his inner being, I will never be able to teach him in time to save him from the forces drawing against him._

_Well, I suppose then we should bring him in,_ Xavier said. _Perhaps if I simply discuss with him the process of touching minds, he won’t put up an astral wall when I attempt the act._

_You can always try,_ Strange said, and they broke connection.

 

Xavier hovered over to where Loghain sat. Loghain shifted uncomfortably as he approached, perhaps simply because of the size and strangeness of the hover chair.  “I’d like to let you know exactly what to expect,” Xavier said.

 

“That would be nice to know,” Loghain said, frowning.

 

“I have the power to reach out with my mind and touch your own. From there we will speak, mind to mind, on a dimension known as the Astral Plane.  The Astral Plane may appear any way you wish -- a strange and terrible place, or as familiar and comforting as your own home.  It is the dimension of the mind, quite literally, for it is created within your own mind.  There, if you will allow me, I can proceed further into your mind and uncover truths about yourself that you may not even be aware of.”

 

“I am quite certain that there is nothing in my mind that I do not know myself,” Loghain said.

 

“Many people believe that, and many are surprised to discover that they are incorrect,” Xavier said.

 

“What if I don’t want to know?”

 

Xavier looked at him kindly. “Part of healing is bleeding out the infection.  Anything nasty inside you right now is simply festering, building.  Rankling.  We get it out, you start to heal.”

 

Loghain looked away. “All right.  Have at thee.”


	5. Defiled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mind-diving for memories. Never safe in a Post-Traumatic mind.

“All right, Mister Mac Tir, I am going to reach out my mind to you now,” Professor Xavier said. “Just relax and let it happen.”

 

“Very well,” Loghain said, and sighed and closed his eyes.

 

Xavier entered Loghain’s creation of the Astral Plane. He found himself in a very dark place, confronted by a very high, very sturdy wall.  If he moved, the wall moved with him. _Mister Mac Tir, you said you would try to open yourself to me._

 

“I am,” Loghain said aloud.

 

_You’re not trying very hard. I am encountering considerable resistance._

“Sorry. I don’t know how to do anything about that.”

 

Doctor Strange’s astral form appeared next to Xavier’s on the Astral Plane, indistinctly. _I warned you about this. Keep him busy here.  I’ll get to the bottom of this._

He vanished into the darkness, and Xavier went back to trying to work his way around the psychic wall. Strange left the Astral Plane and returned at the back of Loghain’s mind, unseen.  It was darker still here, black as pitch.  Strange passed his hands before him and made light appear around himself, enough to see at least a short distance, but even magic could not penetrate far in this sort of darkness.  He heard an odd sound, a sort of _fwoop-pwing,_ and a young elven man fell dead at his feet in the small circle of his light.  There was an arrow in his chest.  A badge on his garment identified him as a member of an army company known as the “Night Elves.”  A few steps further and he found himself tripping over the bodies of dead elves and humans, all wearing army uniforms from different decades.

 

Strange expected a touch of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from the many wars and violent engagements Loghain had fought -- no man could come away from such a battle-hardened life without scars. He did not believe it was the core of his difficulties trusting.  Evidence from his life’s history suggested he had always had this problem.  It went deeper, to something in his youth, before his history was widely known.  Before eyes were upon him from afar.  The answer was somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind, not here at the outer edges.

 

He forced his way further in, encountering less resistance than he expected. Perhaps Loghain was not even aware of his presence yet.  In the next level of Loghain’s personal Hell, he found the man’s superstitions.  The belief that he was born under an evil star, a stormcrow destined to bring death and destruction to all that he held dear.  This was a deep-seated belief that came from early childhood, but still it was not what he was looking for.  Still, it was indicative.  That belief must have come from somewhere.

 

He dug through wild nightmares, twisted dreams, tortured memories. He neared the core of Loghain’s mind.  When he reached it, he was momentarily confused.  It was well-lit.  Orderly.  Comforting.  Homely.  A small wooden home and a farmyard, with a stable for horses out back and a chicken coop near the back of the house.  But it seemed empty, abandoned.  Almost eerie.  Perhaps haunted.

 

He approached it carefully, wary of hidden mind-traps. There didn’t seem to be anything to fear in the yard.  He entered the house.

 

A small boy was in the house, eight or nine years old perhaps. That he was Loghain could not be denied, for he had the same cold grey-blue eyes and beaky nose the man was notable for, but he bore little other resemblance to the great hero he would later become.  His dark black hair was neatly trimmed instead of being left to grow long, and he was small even for his age and rather spindly.  He looked up at Strange with a dull, hopeless expression and said nothing.

 

Strange knelt down before him. _Hello, Loghain,_ he said.  The boy’s expression didn’t flicker and he said nothing. _Loghain, where are your parents?_ he tried.

 

The little boy shook his head vigorously and turned away. Strange reached out and turned him back to face him again.  _Come now, my boy. Just tell me.  Where are your parents?_

 

The boy started to shake. A fire started in the roof.  From the stable, a terrible noise -- the whinnying of horses burning to death -- and the smell of burning hair and flesh.  The boy opened his mouth and began to scream.  _NO! NO!  NO!  NO!  NO!_

 

The entire scene began to swirl as though it had been flushed down an astral toilet. There was a mighty explosion as the astral wall broke down and Strange was nearly flung clear of the Astral Plane entirely.  Phantom memories attacked, trying to keep him from seeing what he needed to see.  He kept them back with barrier spells and fought his way back to the core to see what was going on there.

 

There was a woman in the farmyard now, young, pretty, and elven. The valaslin on her face marking her as formerly Dalish, the gingham dress she was wearing marking her more staunchly as a Fereldan housewife.  She was attacking a small troop of men in masks, some of them on horseback, one of them dressed far better than the others, marking him as some sort of Lord and the others his soldiers.  A large human man, dark-haired, considerably older than the elven woman, lay unconscious and well-bloodied in the dirt, and a small, dark-haired boy was in the clutches of one of the dismounted soldiers.  That this boy was the large man’s son was unmistakable.  The boy was Loghain.

 

 _You stay away from my son, you monsters!_ the woman screamed as she fought, and she fought hard, but she was every bit as outnumbered as the large man, and not nearly as well armed.  The soldiers grappled her to the ground and the Lord approached.  He undid the lacings on his trousers.

 

 _Make certain the boy sees,_ he said, as he unfurled. _Let him know well the price of Fereldan insolence._

 

Strange watched the memory in horror as the Orlesian Lord raped the boy’s mother, and then slit her throat with the knife on his belt. “What do we do with the boy, my Lord?” the soldier holding the boy’s head up asked.

 

The Lord waved a dismissive hand. _Oh, do what you will. Have at him if you wish.  It would be a good lesson for him.  Let him know what he is worth in the greater scheme of things._

 

The soldiers laughed unpleasantly and undid the codpieces of their armor. Strange couldn’t watch any more.  He blacked out the image presented to his eyes but he could do nothing about silencing the boy’s pained screams in his ears.  When the memory ended, all was still once more.  He allowed himself sight again and went to see if there was anything he could do to help with the mess he had made.

 

The farmyard was quiet and empty again, but the house was still burning. The soldiers were gone.  The large man was gone.  The elven woman lay dead in a pool of blood with her dress torn.  The boy was missing.  Small footprints and a trail of blood led into the burning house.  Strange followed them inside and found the boy huddled on the floor half-underneath his parents’ bed.

 

 _Go away,_ the boy said.  There were tears in his voice, but also a species of quiet strength.  His whole world had been torn from him, but he was not fully broken.  Just… mostly.  He would come through this.  Not fully healed, never fully healed, but he would… survive.  He would always survive.  It was the one thing he did better than anything else.  _You’re one of the bad people. Go away._

 

_No, Loghain. I’m not bad.  I’m here to help you.  I’m not like the bad people._

 

_You’re **not,** are you?_

 

This was the voice of an older Loghain, and it came from behind him. Strange spun around to confront a Loghain of older middle years, a powerful warrior in heavy plate, with long dark hair done in wind braids and a cold, angry expression. _You call making a little boy relive the worst memories of his life a good thing, then?_

 

_I had to make you confront --_

 

 _I confront this every day,_ Loghain said.  _It is never far from my mind. Did you think I could simply forget the rape and murder of my mother?  The way it felt to be held down and repeatedly raped up the ass myself?_

 

 _You keep it buried,_ Strange said.

 

 _I **try.** It doesn’t work, _Loghain said.  _Something always comes along to wreak havoc. A fleeting memory, an asshole mage -- something._

 

 _I was only trying to help, Loghain,_ Strange said.

 

_I don’t care what you were trying to do. Just get out.  It’s going to take me a long time to put things back in order, if I even can.  First time there’s been an actual intruder in my mind, this may have done more damage than I can fix._

_Let me help --_

_Get. Out._

Strange jumped back to his own body without further ado. Xavier was staring at him in some dismay, and Loghain glared hard from under brows that were now grey but had lost none of their forbidding power.

 

“Well,” Strange said, clapping his hands together briskly despite the pain that invariably caused to them. “That was… a complete failure.  Loghain, I shall let you be.  Feel free to rest.  Drinks are on the sideboard if you wish for anything stronger than your water.  Professor, I shall see you out.”


	6. Kickboxing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lessons begin.

Strange gave Loghain several hours of non-time alone to cool off before quietly reentering the lounge and attempting to mend ties.

 

“Loghain?”

 

“The _fuck_ do you want?” Loghain asked.

 

“To apologize.  I knew I’d find something bad.  I never realized just how bad it could be.”

 

“You never bothered to ask me, either.”

 

“Would you have told me?”

 

“Probably not.  Why did _you_ need to know in the first place?”

 

“Sharing our pain with another is a key step in learning how to heal ourselves.”

 

“Well, don’t worry about it, _Mister_ Strange.  As you now know, today wasn’t the _first_ time I’ve been defiled.”

 

“Please tell me you don’t really feel that way.”

 

Loghain stood up, crossed to the sideboard, and poured a shot of whiskey.  He polished it off in a single swallow and poured another.  “No.  After all, I gave consent, didn’t I?  I knew what you intended to do.  I doubted your power to actually do it, is all.  I thought you would putter around in my head, see the stuff on the surface, if that, and never get near the things I didn’t want you to see.  So this is my fault, for underestimating you.  It won’t happen again, believe you me.”  He knocked back his second shot.

 

“We need to move beyond this, you and I, so that we may work together,” Strange said.

 

“Done.  Already moved beyond.”

 

“You’re lying.”

 

 _“You’re_ wasting time, Doctor Strange.  Didn’t you say time was of the essence now?”

 

Strange smiled a sad smile.  “So it is.  Come, Loghain.  I shall have Master Wong show you to your room, and he will give you your first lesson once you’ve settled in.  There really is no time to waste.”

 

He sounded a gong, and a short, burly man with light Rivaini coloration, a bald head, and particularly suspicious almond-shaped eyes fixed directly upon Loghain, appeared out of nowhere in a blaze of red fire.  Strange bowed to him and the man returned the bow, and without a word gestured to Loghain and turned and left the room at a fast pace.

 

“You’d better walk fast, or he’ll leave you behind,” Strange said.  “Wong isn’t particularly considerate to his students.”

 

Must be a common trait amongst sorcerers,” Loghain said, and grabbed his walking stick.  He stumped out past Strange without a glance.

 

Wong led him through more halls than the Winter Palace at Halamshiral.  Finally he stopped outside one door, turned, and stood at parade rest with his hands folded behind his back.  “Your room,” he said sharply.  Loghain looked at him a little uncertainly, and opened the door.

 

It was a dungeon cell, bare stone walls and floor, without even a straw pallet to sleep on.  “A bit different from the rest of the house,” he said lightly.

 

“Comfort is a luxury the student must _earn,”_ Wong said.  He sounded rather angry.  Loghain took another look inside the room.

 

“Well, it’ll do for me.  I’m used to nothing,” he said.  “Say, what’s that thing in the corner?”  He pointed to a tall metal contraption with wheels, wooden palates off the upper sides, and a large lid on top.

 

“A Weber charcoal grill,” Wong said.

 

“Oh.  Right.  What’s it for?” Loghain said.

 

“Cooking.  You will be using it for hatching.”

 

“Hatching?  Hatching what?”

 

Wong stuck a hand out, and in a flash of blue light, a large book dropped onto his palm.  “Page eighty-three,” he said, and shoved the book into Loghain’s arms.  “Study it hard, or you will kill the damn thing.  The Doctor thought that after the events of today you should have a companion, and felt this was best suited to you.  The egg will come to you tonight, after your lesson.”

 

Loghain made to open the book, but Wong stopped him.  “Time for that later.  Now we will go to the arena for your first lesson.”

 

“All right, all right.  Let me put the book away, at least.”

 

“Just put it down on the grill and get moving,” Wong said.

 

Loghain followed Wong through more endless halls and rooms filled with strange artifacts.  Finally Wong stopped in a large area with a dirt floor and no roof.  Racks of weapons lined the walls.  “The arena,” he said, with a sweeping gesture.  “Here you will learn to fight.”

 

“I’m afraid I already know how to fight,” Loghain said, with a sneer.  “I’m just a little feeble, now.”

 

“Take up your weapon,” Wong said, and moved into the center of the dirt floor.  Loghain looked at him, then drew a longsword from the weapon rack on the wall.  He had to hold it in both hands in order to keep it aloft.

 

“Where’s _your_ weapon?” he asked.

 

“I _am_ my weapon,” Wong said.

 

“Whoa now,” Loghain said.  “If you’re going to hit me with magic, that’s hardly fair.  I don’t know fighting magic yet.”

 

“I do not need magic to defeat you, only my body.”

 

Loghain looked hard at him, and at his sword, and back again.  “You’re going to fight me bare-fisted, when I’ve got a sword in my hands?  Even at this late date, I’ll _kill_ you.”

 

“You will not get the opportunity.”

 

Loghain shook his head in disbelief and advanced with his sword held out before him.  Wong waited for him calmly, but before he made it Wong launched his entire body quite suddenly into the air and landed a straight-leg kick right across Loghain’s face.  Loghain’s entire body flew into the air, which was lucky, as otherwise his neck might have snapped from the force of the blow.

 

He lay in the dirt, stunned, for a moment, then curled up in pain.  “Aw, shit… what was that?” he said, when he knew he could talk.

 

“One of the many martial arts of this dimension,” Wong said.  “A similar art exists in your own, to the north, amongst the people known as the viddathari -- the humans and elves who give themselves over to the philosophy of the Qun.  In this dimension, it is known as Kung Fu.”

 

Loghain slowly drew himself back to his feet.  “Can you teach me how to do that?” he asked.

 

Wong shook his head.  “It is far past your ability.”

 

“I’ll never be able to fight you if I cannot fight you on your own terms.”

 

Wong nodded, with the first moderately pleased expression on his face that Loghain had seen thus far.  “Very good, Student.  You are learning.  You never will.”

 

“Then what’s the point?”

 

“To teach you your limitations.  You are learning far faster than I expected.  I think I managed to kick at a little of the Alpha Male ego right out of you.  That’s a good thing.  I take it more easy on you from now on, until your weakness no longer matters, and then I teach you to fight on my terms.”

 

Loghain put a hand on his aching jaw.  “You almost kicked my head off my shoulders.  I’m worried about your idea of ‘taking it more easy.’”

 

“Well, you can worry about it after a night’s sleep.  First lesson over.  First _test_ begun.  Find your way back to your room on your _own.”_ And Wong vanished in a flash of red flames.

 

“Think I can’t do it, don’t you?” Loghain said to the empty room, knowing that both Wong and the Doctor could hear him nevertheless.  “I’ll show you.”

 

He followed his memory backward through the rooms and twisting halls until he found his tiny, bare cell room.  He was too sore to sleep so he took the book Wong left with him and sat down on the floor and opened to page eighty-three.  “Teacup Opaleye,” was the title of the page, with a highly detailed picture of a tiny, blind baby dragon in the half of an eggshell, hatching out.  He quickly took a look at the cover of the book and saw that the title was _There’s a Dragon in my Teacup: A Field Guide to Practical Draconology._ Practical Draconology?  What in the Maker’s name did that mean?  And what was all this nonsense about an egg?

 

Well, Wong told him to study, and he believed by this point that bad things would follow if he disobeyed orders, so he returned to page eighty-three and read about the Teacup Opaleye, a tiny species of dragon native to a place known only by the rather generic name of the “tenth” dimension, a place where dragons were the highest and most widespread life form.  The species grew to no more than six inches in total length, with males and females indistinguishable from each other except by coloration.  Females were dull black in coloration upon maturity, and males grew to be multi-colored, like abalone shells.  Both sexes breathed a flame no hotter than that of a candle.  To hatch an egg, it must be kept warm in hot charcoal embers for a period of two weeks.

 

Loghain closed the book and pondered what he was meant to do with this new information.    
He hadn’t figured it out yet when a knock came at his door.  He climbed to his feet and answered it, only to find no sign of anyone there.  There was, however, a small red pillow on the floor at his feet in the hall outside, and on it lay a tiny multi-colored pearly shelled egg, no larger than a sparrow’s egg.  He levitated it into his hand and brought it back into the room with him.  He wasn’t certain what he would want with a tiny dragon in his life, but if he was meant to hatch it out, then that’s what he’d do.  He opened the lid of the grill and cast fire at the charcoal briquettes inside until they were warm and glowing, then snuggled the little egg in amongst them.  Then he closed the lid and lay himself out on the bare stone floor to sleep.


	7. Pepper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Studies are made easier through a little magical assistance and a little dragon comes into the world.

Twenty hour days, six hour nights.  It wouldn’t make sense, except for the fact that time was stopped, so apparently hours and days no longer meant anything in the grand scheme of things, just the remainder of a concept that was stuck in his head.  Lessons filled his mornings, at what he thought of as noon he got a moment’s time to eat a bowl of barley and beans -- standard Fereldan army fare -- and then it was back to his lessons.  Despite his feebleness, Wong seemed happy with his progress in his physical training.  Doctor Strange, on the other hand, seemed worried at his lack of advancement in his sorcerous studies.

 

“You should be progressing faster.  You were doing so well with the book I gave you originally,” he said after the first “week” had passed.

 

“That was a book of ‘basic’ spells for the unlettered,” Loghain said.  “Now you’ve got me reading books with titles like _A Dissection of the Elder or Germanic Futhark_ and _Vedic, Classical Sanskrit.  The Codex Imperium.  Astronomia Nova.  Maxim’s Primer._ Some books I find I can’t even _read_ , others… far beyond my understanding.  I cannot go from the bottom to the top all at once.  Surely there is a lesser level that I can begin on?”

 

“This _is_ the lesser level,” Strange said.  He stroked his beard in thought for a moment.  “If I could see inside your head I could see what the problem might be, but that’s…”

 

 _“Not_ going to happen,” Loghain said, scowling.

 

Strange shrugged.  “Perhaps the answer is simple: perhaps you are simply not open to this knowledge.  But I think there may be something else involved here.  Tell me, Loghain, and tell me honestly: have you always had trouble learning new things?  I know you told me that you had difficulty learning the things that King Maric wanted you to learn, but what about when your mother taught you reading and writing?  Was that difficult, too?”

 

He was clearly uncomfortable answering the question, but finally Loghain nodded.  “Took a long time.  Mother made me read as often as she could find a book for me, and made me write reports on the meaning behind the story of all of them.  And I had to rewrite them over and over again until I did them right, too.  I think by the end I could read and write better than she could, but that’s what she wanted for me.”

 

“But is it easy for you to read, or do you have to work at it?” Strange asked.

 

“Doesn’t _everything_ require work?” Loghain said.

 

“It does for dyslexics.”

 

“For whom?”

 

“Dyslexia, my boy, is a disorder by which symbols are not correctly translated by the brain.  And so a letter or a number may appear garbled in some way.  The common perception is that they appear backwards, but this is not necessarily true.  The point is that they don’t appear as they _are,_ making it very difficult to read and perform arithmetic.  Your dimension is not aware of this condition, but it exists there.  You simply write it off as… ‘stupidity.’  Your mother was quite different from other mothers, in pushing you to learn to read and write despite your difficulties, if dyslexia was indeed your problem.”

 

“Is there a cure for this?” Loghain asked.

 

“No.  Only what you yourself have already done, learn to work around it.  But I think you’ve fought long enough, don’t you?  You’re a sorcerer now, and sorcerers know tricks other people don’t.  Let’s see if this helps any, shall we?”

 

Strange held out a hand and a small pair of wire-rimmed spectacles appeared on his palm.  He passed his other hand over them and a few sparks flew from them.  He handed them over.

 

“Now.  _Understanding_ the books I’ve given you to read is _your_ province, and on that you shall have to work very hard, but let’s just see if these don’t help you with the reading.”

 

“I don’t have trouble _seeing,”_ Loghain said.

 

“These glasses don’t correct sight,” Strange said.  “Only the transmission of symbols from page to brain.  It’s not a cure for dyslexia -- take the glasses off and you will be quite dyslexic again -- but with the glasses on, you should find you have no further difficulty reading.”

 

“Hmph.  Handy.  Assuming I am dyslexic, and not merely stupid.”

 

“You are _not_ stupid.  But you might not be dyslexic, either.  Still, I believe it is very likely.  Give it a try, and if they don’t work for you, just put them aside, and I’ll gather them later.  We will find another solution.”

 

“What if there is no solution?  What if I _am_ simply too stupid for sorcery?”

 

“You _can_ learn this if you try.  You have more than enough intellect, and _far_ more than enough will.  You simply have to turn them both in this direction.  Now return to your study and work.  I expect to see progress _soon.”_

 

Loghain found his way back to his room, which, after the first day, he had discovered was actually a _suite_ of rooms.  Comfort was apparently only a luxury he needed to earn in the bedroom, for his study, library, greenhouse, and laboratory were all beautifully appointed.  The doors -- possibly the rooms themselves -- simply disappeared at nighttime so that he could not cap out in one of the more comfortable areas.

 

He checked under the lid of the Weber grill, and made sure that the charcoal was sufficiently warm.  The egg had about another week left to incubate, according to the book, before it would hatch.  The species he was supposedly hatching was very small and intelligent, but it was a dragon.  He really didn’t think this was a good idea, but what the Masters wanted, he supposed they would get, whatever their reasons.  Egg tended, he opened the door to his study.

 

Like the rest of the house, this room was wood paneling-heavy, but Loghain liked the look.  It was more opulent than the hand-built wood house his father had built but it reminded him of that first home all the same.  He had a fine desk and a comfortable chair in which to sit at it, good lighting, and a sideboard at which he could fill his glass with whatever he wished at any time, from water to whiskey.  Given the short rations at meal times, it was odd that they were so free with the drinks.  He stuck to water.  He knew how stupid alcohol made him.

 

He sat down at his desk and turned on the light, pulling up what he thought of as the worst of the books he was meant to study, _A Dissection of the Elder or Germanic Futhark_ , a book of a runes and their translations into what _he_ thought of as the King’s Tongue or Common, what the _book_ called English.  It had all been gibberish to him before now.  With the new spectacles, perhaps he would be able to parse it out at last.  He unfolded the bows and slipped them on.

 

It still looked like gibberish, but he set himself to working through it.  He couldn’t tell if the glasses were really helping or not, not with regards to the runic symbols, but it did seem easier to read the parts that were written in his own language.  With a concerted effort, he learned to read enough runic symbols over the next few hours to translate his own name into the Elder Futhark.  Over the next few days, he learned to translate an entire book written in the runes, and learned much about translating Sanskrit as well.  It frustrated him, but it certainly wasn’t as difficult as it had started out to be.  Apparently he’d had a “condition” all along.  Perhaps he wasn’t quite as stupid as he thought.

 

Despite his busy schedule, the Masters arranged it perfectly so that he was present when the egg hatched.  He watched as the little creature inside cracked the shell open with the tiny egg tooth on the end of its nose.  When the shell was open it lay in the remains of its amniotic sac, tiny and blind and mostly helpless, the color of a charcoal briquette itself.  Its tiny, underdeveloped wings were stuck against its body with embryonic fluid and it lay struggling on its back and crying out in tiny squeaks.  It was only about an inch long from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, such a tiny creature that it hardly seemed capable of life.

 

A plate of cubed meat, the chunks as large as the dragonlet, appeared on the shelf of the grill.  Even one piece looked like entirely too much food for the little thing, but he took a piece and put it down on the charcoal nearby.  The dragonlet struggled harder, managed to roll to its feet, and crawled to the meat.  It glommed onto it and tore a bit from the side with the parrot-like beak on the end of its nose (it had no apparent teeth as yet) and swallowed it down.  It kept tearing the meat and swallowing it down until it was gone.

 

“Greedy little bugger, aren’t you?” he said.  “But then, I suppose I’d be hungry, too, if all I had to eat for two weeks was what I found inside a dragon’s egg.”

 

The dragonlet responded to the sound of his voice, raising its little, wobbling head and turning it towards him.  Its eyes wouldn’t open, not yet, but it did seem to know he was there.  It opened its mouth and squawked shrilly.

 

“You’re not going to be a loudmouth, are you?” Loghain asked.  “I don’t think I can abide a loudmouth dragon.”  He reached out a finger and gently stroked the dragon’s head.  The dragon glommed on to his fingertip and held on tight.  “Hey, you little shit -- none of that, now.  You just ate!”

 

“He needs a name,” Strange said from behind him.

 

“Can’t I have some privacy at least in my bedroom?” Loghain said.

 

“At most moments, but I wanted to see how you were doing at this particular type of animal husbandry.”

 

“It’s a boy, then?  The book said you can’t tell until they get older.”

 

“I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, actually.  I’m just a chauvinist.  Product of my era.  Besides, I have a fifty-fifty chance of being correct.”

 

“Why exactly did you think I needed a pet dragon?” Loghain asked.

 

“This really isn’t a pet.  You’ll discover he’s far too intelligent for that.  The egg was orphaned and need someone to hatch it.  I felt you needed someone to bond with.  It seemed a good match.  You have always gotten along better with those of species other than your own.”

 

“You mean like elves?”

 

Strange chuckled.  “No.  Elves are of the same species as humans.  So are dwarves.  They are merely different _races_.  You tend to be more comfortable with them than with humans because you feel that humans tend to be untrustworthy, but your paranoia pushes you to feel that way about everyone to some degree.  Animals are the only ones with whom you share your true soul, because it is only with them that you feel you can truly trust.  Many sorcerers are deeply attached to animals.  Later you may find you attract a ‘familiar,’ a magical or mundane creature that takes on magical qualities unique to itself and you, that is devoted only to you, and assists you in your magical learning.  Most sorcerers have one.  Wong’s is a purobolos.”

 

“What’s a purobolos?”

 

“A large, blue, glowing creature that floats in the air and explodes when it feels threatened.  I don’t recommend becoming acquainted with ‘Buddha,’ as it is named, because it can be rather touchy with everyone but Wong himself.”

 

“Buddha?  Wong told me something about a Buddha while he was kicking my face in at practice one day last week.  Isn’t there a _religion_ based around him in this dimension?”

 

“Wrong Buddha.  And the familiar is actually named ‘Buddha’ because… well, because he’s so round.”

 

“What’s _your_ familiar?” Loghain asked.

 

Strange cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “Now, one thing you should keep in mind, just in case, is that not all sorcerers, not even _Master_ sorcerers, gain a familiar…”

 

“You don’t have one?”

 

“No, I… I do.”

 

“Then what is it?”

 

“…A rabbit.”

 

Loghain blinked.  “A _rabbit?”_

 

“A rabbit.  Pester is a very _good_ familiar.  I could perhaps wish that he were a little less… cute and cuddly… but that is neither his fault nor mine.  A familiar is whatever it happens to be, and its power is not lessened by its species.”

 

“How do familiars get chosen?  I mean, what makes one specimen of one particular species become your familiar over any other?”

 

“The processes are not completely known to me.  The Ancient One may have known more about it than I do, but what I _do_ know is that… like calls to like.”

 

“So… Wong is like a giant, exploding bomb creature, which I totally understand, and _you_ are essentially a rabbit.”

 

“That’s _not_ the case exactly.  Animals are more like people than you may be aware.  They may not have ‘sentience,’ as we define it, but they have individual personalities.  Pester is a rabbit, true, but overall he is… an arrogant little prick.  _That_ is why he became my familiar, if you truly must know.”

 

“So you’re admitting you’re an arrogant little prick, then?” Loghain said.

 

“I have always been.  I’m working on changing myself.  I shudder to think what sort of creature may draw to you.  Even after being inside your mind, I’m not entirely sure _what_ you are, other than dangerous.”

 

“Probably not a rabbit, then, eh?”

 

“Probably not, no.  In any event, there are so many creatures throughout the many dimensions that it is highly unlikely that any two sorcerers alive today attract the same type of creature.”

 

“What did this Ancient One have for a familiar?” Loghain asked.

 

Strange shook his head.  “If she had one, I never met it.  It would have been as nearly immortal as she was, but when she died it would have died with her.  Such is the way of familiars: they bind to you, and become immune to disease and injury and old age for as long as their master lives.  The moment your life ends, however, theirs does, also.”

 

“Handy, but kind of sad, too.  Maybe I’ll get a mabari.”

 

“More than likely it will be a fighter, whatever it may be, but I don’t think you can count on pinpointing or even recognizing the breed or species.  As I said, too many animals spread through too many dimensions.  But if you’d _like_ a mabari, there’s no reason why you couldn’t have one, once you’ve proven that you can take care of your little friend in the grill back there.”

 

“Yes, there _is_ a reason.  Mabari have to choose you, you can’t choose them.  Besides, I already had one.  I never really wanted another.  It was just a passing fancy.”

 

“Well, if you’re certain.  But if you should change your mind…”

 

“I won’t.”

 

“So.  Have you given any thought to a name for your _new_ little friend?”

 

Loghain turned back to the grill and the tiny creature laying on the glowing briquettes within.  “I don’t know.  Never named a dragon before.  ‘Pepper’ sounds appropriate enough, perhaps.”

 

“If he _does_ turn out to be male, he won’t remain pepper-black.”

 

“Some peppers aren’t black, now are they?  And the firey taste is the important part, isn’t it?”

 

Strange smiled.  “True enough.  Feed him another piece of meat.  At this stage of life, he has a ravenous appetite.  He doesn’t exactly lose it at any point, either.”

 

“Where does he store it all?”

 

“Burns it up with his fantastic metabolism.  He’s a dragon.  The dragons in your dimension are different -- they eat fabulous amounts of food once a century and then sleep for another hundred years.  Most dragons in most dimensions are a little more proactive about feeding.  They need to eat a _lot_ of food, _all_ the time.  Fortunately, in most places where the really big ones live, either the prey is large enough and plentiful enough to compensate, or they have learned to use magic to change themselves into smaller, more food-efficient body forms in order to survive.  In this dimension, our dragons frequently pass as human.”

 

“Amazing.”

 

“Dragons are some of the oldest, most intelligent creatures in any of the dimensions.  If they had only been granted the convenience of naturally-occurring thumbs, they probably would have created the first civilizations.  They certainly invented language.  The mark of a true dragon is a natural affinity for languages.  Many species can speak.  Others may be telepathic.”

 

“What about _our_ dragons, back in Thedas?”

 

“Telepathy.  The sheer size and power of them was enough to make the early Tevinters worship them, and certain amongst the dragons took advantage of that.”

 

“The so-called ‘Old Gods.’”

 

“Precisely.”

 

“So, will ‘Pepper’ here be able to speak?”

 

“Not directly.  He will, over time, develop a telepathic connection with you, if you will allow.  Even if you do not, the Teacup Opaleye is very good at reading people, even without a telepathic connection.”

 

“If I let him into my head, does that mean _you_ will be able to get in?”

 

Strange let out a huff of breath through his nose in a kind of not-quite amusement.  “Probably not.  In any event, that is something that I shall not be attempting to do any longer.”

 

“So you say.”

 

“I will simply trust you from this moment on to tell me anything that I might need to know.  Everything else… is none of my business.”

 

“You’ve got that right,” Loghain said.


	8. Hard Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More studies.

Caring for Pepper took up most of the next day, but the little creature grew quickly for its size and became fairly independent in not too long.  It had to stay close to him at all times, for it had to be fed at _least_ once an hour, but he could return to his studies after the first day of tending to the dragonlet.  It rode perched on his shoulder, quite frequently nibbling on his earlobe, often asleep when it wasn’t eating.  Sometimes he almost forgot it was there, but it certainly had ways of making itself known when it wanted to be noticed.  Though tiny, it had quite the voice, and could bite very hard when it wished.

 

His sorcery lessons for a short time became something like lessons in practical dragon-keeping, such as learning how to conjure pieces of raw cube meat from the kitchen to the palm of his hand.  When he was more advanced, Strange promised that he would be able to conjure food from thin air itself.  It was a useful talent, but unfortunately he couldn’t do it yet with anything larger than cubed beef, or he wouldn’t have to go hunting through the house libraries for books he needed.  Wong and Strange could do such things without even thinking much about it.  Well, that’s what practice was for.  Pepper would surely keep him in good practice.

 

As the days passed, Pepper grew more and more, within the confines of his species.  Soon he was three inches long, and assaying his first weak attempts at flight, flapping his tiny wings, leaping from Loghain’s shoulder.  He didn’t do so well at first, and plummeted a few times and had to be caught before he fell all the way to the floor and perhaps be injured.  A few more tries, and his wings became strong enough for him to catch himself, and then he was flying.  There was no keeping him settled after that.

 

He -- or she; Loghain was secretly of the opinion his dragonlet was a female: With his limited knowledge of dragons it made sense to him to think so as the dominant attitude the little creature displayed suggested _female_ dragon behavior to him -- didn’t speak to Loghain telepathically or otherwise, not yet at any rate, but it did seem to know him very well.  When he was at his studies, the little creature helped him by finding the specific page he needed, or even the proper book amongst the growing pile sitting on his study desk.  He didn’t even have to say anything.  The little thing was much stronger than it seemed, and could tug a volume many times heavier than itself out from under a number of such books without much difficulty.

 

While Pepper was progressing rapidly, Loghain’s studies were, he felt, going at a crawl.  Sure, he could summon stew beef from the kitchens to his hand now, and he could read his lesson books with relative ease thanks to the special spectacles, but it was so _difficult_ to make any of it make sense.  There were many references to a Great Triumvirate, a trio of apparently “god-like” beings called Oshtur, Hoggoth, and Agamotto.  God- _like,_ but not, apparently, _gods._ What they _were_ wasn’t written, but it seemed reasonable to suppose they were probably just _really_ talented sorcerers.  Perhaps the first or the greatest of Sorcerers’ Supreme from several dimensions.  They apparently were still alive somewhere, granting sorcerers extra power when called upon.  He didn’t understand, but god-like or gods-exactly, everything that spoke of them sounded religious.  It made him uncomfortable, thinking he was being forced to accept a new religion.

 

The rest of his studies were worse.  Exploring the ins and outs of a work titled _A Treatise Upon Translocation Through Telekinesis, Popularly Termed Teleportation_ was barely intelligible to him.  He understood this was how Strange and Wong kept popping in and out all around him, but the explanations the book gave of how they did it made no sense to his limited understanding.  Passages like _“Projection of your Astral Self from one location to another, when concentrated, can be used to move the Physical Self as well,”_ were actually the _easiest_ parts to understand.  He did something fairly similar with the stew beef from the kitchens.  From there, things got tricky.

 

Strange let him stew over these studies for some time before giving him any more help.  “You’re doing well on your own, but beginning sorcerers always require a little assistance with this sort of thing.  Here: a Sling Ring.  A powerful magical artifact that will allow you to open up a dimensional rift within the Astral Plane that will enable you to travel from where you are to where you wish to be, in this or any other dimension, instantly, exactly like proper telekinetic translocation.  It requires concentration, just like the real thing, so it’s good practice for a novice.  Try it.  Go from here to the arena.”

 

Loghain put the ring, which was double-knuckled, on his two middle fingers and held out his fist.  He focused on the idea of the arena, but nothing happened.

 

“Keep trying.  The clearer the picture in your mind, and the more focused you are upon it, the faster it works.  If you continue to fail, I shall simply have to strip you naked and leave you at the peak of our tallest mountain to swiftly freeze to death or die of lack of oxygen unless you can save yourself with the ring, as my teacher did to me,” Strange said, with a bright smile.

 

Loghain broke concentration entirely and shook his head.  “That doesn’t sound so much like motivation as _torture,”_ he said.

 

“It worked, though,” Strange said.  “Rather like dropping a child that can’t swim off of the dock.  Cruel, but typically effective.  Keep trying.”

 

Loghain tried again, concentrating hard on the familiar mental image of the arena.  He closed his eyes and visualized.  “You might want to open your eyes again,” Strange said.  He sounded amused.  “Just don’t break focus when you do.”

 

Loghain opened his eyes.  Before him, he saw a hole in thin air, and within it, he saw the dirt floor of the arena.  Surprised, he lost his focus and the hole disappeared. 

 

“Well, you had it,” Strange said.  “Let’s see if you can get it back again, shall we?  Keep your eyes open so you know when you can step through.”

 

Loghain shrugged and tried again, keeping his eyes open.  Being able to see his surroundings was distracting, but in time a vague shadow of the arena appeared.  He concentrated on that and the picture grew clearer, more true.

 

“Very good.  Focus.  Make it real,” Strange said.

 

Loghain concentrated harder.  The vision of the arena became more and more realistic, until once more there was a hole in reality.  Pepper squawked and flew through.  “Go on,” Strange said.  “You’d better go after him.  Just make sure you hold your concentration until you’re through.”

 

“What if I don’t?” Loghain asked.

 

“Don’t ask.  Just go.”

 

Loghain shrugged again and stepped through the hole  he had created, which slammed shut behind him.  Pepper squawked and landed on his shoulder.  Strange appeared beside him.  “Very well done,” he said.  “Keep practicing with your ring, and keep studying your book, and soon you’ll be teleporting naturally.”

 

“What would’ve happened if I’d lost concentration on the way through that hole?” Loghain asked again.  Strange sighed.

 

“You _might_ ’ve been scissored in two by the closing portal, but only if I could not save you in time, which believe me, I could.”

 

“And you want me to… practice this on my _own_ time.”

 

“Now that you know how to do it, it should be no problem,” Strange said, and smiled.  “Besides, you will never be far from my watchful eye while you remain a novice at such things.  Now, Wong is ready to give you your daily beating -- I mean, _lesson.”_

 

“Ha ha.  Very droll,” Loghain said, without humor.  Strange vanished and Wong appeared.  They proceeded with training.  As they sparred, Loghain finally asked the question that had been on his mind for some time.  “If I’m going to be a Master Sorcerer someday, with bloody infinite magic at my command, why do I need to learn how to fight any better?”

 

Wong smiled thinly.  “Mastery of the body is a part of the discipline of the mind,” he said.  “You cannot have complete mastery of one without the complete mastery of the other.  That said, you needn’t go all the way on either discipline.  Master Sorcerers do not always have complete mastery of _every_ discipline.  It is fairly rare that they do.  You, however, having had a _decent_ mastery of the body already, shouldn’t find it terribly difficult to master both.”

 

“But why would I ever need to fight like this?”

 

“Not every foe can be defeated with magic, even the most powerful magic there is.”

 

“So there are limitations to sorcerery.”

 

“There are limitations to all things.  If you are to become a Sorcerer Supreme, you must learn to work _beyond_ those limitations.”

 

“That doesn’t make sense.”

 

“Then you will fail,” Wong said, and knocked him unconscious with a roundhouse kick.


	9. All Your Horrors Are Come to Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demons real and philosophical.

He was in the main library, halfway up one of the shorter ladders, searching for a book on transcendental meditation -- garbage, in his opinion, but he was expected to open his mind to new concepts now -- when little black Pepper, fully-grown but still not fully mature, trilled a warning call in his ear and bristled.

 

He turned, holding on tight to the rung with one hand, and looked around.  “Hello?  Is somebody there?” he asked.  No sound, but Pepper continued to growl and snarl at the apparent nothing, so he climbed down the ladder and took a look around.

 

“Doc?” he called out.  “Wong?”

 

A scuffling sound, and a flash of movement in the far corner of the room.  Craning his neck to see as much of that area as possible, he moved in that direction, stepping cautiously.  He didn’t have his sword.  Stupid man, letting himself get complacent, thinking this place was safe enough to go around without it.

 

Something scuffled to another hiding place again and he turned as quickly as possible to track it, but he couldn’t catch a glimpse of anything more than a flash of red and the low sound of heavy breathing.  “All right, you sneaky bastard,” he said.  “I know you’re there.  Show yourself already.”

 

Something -- for lack of a better descriptor -- vaulted backwards over one of the desks and landed before him, something covered in long red fur.  It had slender horns, great lower fangs that stuck out like tusks, glowing red eyes with elliptical pupils, hooves on its hind legs, and its knees bent the other way.  Its long fingers ended in great, semi-retractable claws.  It grinned unpleasantly at him.  Loghain blinked a couple of times at this strange thing before him.

 

“What in the Void are you?” he asked, dumbfounded.

 

“I am all your nightmares made living flesh,” the creature said, and licked its teeth with a long, bifurcated tongue.

 

Loghain looked down at himself.  “Well, I’m not naked, so I’m fairly certain I’m not having a nightmare.  So what’s the story, morning glory?  You’re here to kill me, then?”

 

“You catch on quick.”  The creature lunged for him, but he was able to dodge the attack.  He conjured up a basic fire spell -- simple, easy, powerful, and focused hard.  A strong, sustained flame burst from his fingers to wash over the creature, but once he broke the spell it seemed that all that had happened was that he had burned off the creature’s fur.  It looked itself over, taking its newly pinked flesh and exposed genitals (it was male) looked back up at him and grinned.  “Thanks for the Brazilian,” it said, and lunged for him again.

 

He dodged again, using telekinesis to dump stacks and shelves full of books in the creature’s path to slow it, and tried the basic ice spell, firing giant ice shards at his strange foe.  The creature performed some sprightly acrobatics to leap the obstacles and projectiles and he lost his concentration to cast more.  The creature spit some sort of pinkish acid his way and he tried to block it with a shield spell but it fizzled and died out beneath his ineptitude and the acid or venom or whatever it was burned through the sleeve of his tunic and into the flesh of his arm.  He didn’t take the time to cry out at the pain.

 

He had to come up with something.  This was a real opponent, and he was more or less unarmed against it.  The creature bounded after him, swift and unyielding, and he was forced to run for his life.  In the confined space and in his condition, there was little else he could do except to levitate.  Levitation of small objects was easy, levitation of himself was difficult and required immense power and concentration.  It was the best he could do to manage to run halfway up the wall for a distance of about thirty feet before falling heavily down.  He felt something crack in his hip and a searing pain, possibly worse than anything he’d ever felt before.  He’d broken bones, but this… this was different.  Because he was _old_ now.  Breaks came harder, deeper, sharper.

 

Pepper flew around his face, frantic, flapping wings slapping at him, trilling shrilly for him to _get up!_ He knew that he had to, somehow.  The creature was advancing upon him, slowly, step by step, laughing low in its throat, sure of him, mocking him.  He struggled, trying to move, trying to regain his feet, but the pain hobbled him.  Why try anyway?  Wouldn’t it be better just to give in and let the beast kill him?  He never asked for any of this.  He’d given his time and his life to Ferelden, to the Wardens.  Shed more of his own blood over time than the human body contained, and felt every moment of the commensurate pain.  Wasn’t that enough?  Should he really be expected to give more at this late date?  Just let it be over and done.

 

Pepper landed on his cheek and bit the end of his nose, hard.  It seemed to be a reminder that was a warrior, even if he didn’t quite understand yet what he was fighting for.  He focused his mind on the palm of his right hand and did something he had never done before -- brought his sword to his hand from the arena where it was racked to his grip, by far the largest telekinetic teleportation he had ever made.  As the hairless monster lunged for him, he managed a pain-filled roll and thrust the blade straight through the creature’s body.  Its red eyes dimmed as black blood gushed from the wound and its toothy mouth.  It collapsed across his body and he barely had the strength left to push it off.  Apparently he didn’t need to have done so, as it disappeared shortly thereafter.

 

He lay in terrible pain, breathing heavily and sweating hard.  Where were the masters of this house while all of this was going on?  Weren’t they supposed to be watching all things under this roof?

 

“Very well done, Mister Mac Tir,” Doctor Strange’ cultured voice said.  “I admit, for a few moments I thought I would be forced to intervene, but you acquitted yourself admirably in the end.”

 

He raised his head to look.  “So that was, what?  A test?”

 

“A demonstration, more like,” Strange said.  “I wanted you to see something of what it is you must push yourself so hard against.  That was a very _minor_ threat.  _Most_ of what I am protecting you from on a moment-to-moment basis… is far, far worse than that.  And they want you very, very badly.”

 

“Why do they want _me?”_

 

“They want you out of the way, so they have a clear shot to your dimension.”

 

“I’m not there now.  What’s stopping them from taking it _right now,_ if they want it so badly?”

 

“Your mages, partly.  The stoppage of time there, partly.  _Me,_ mostly.  But I cannot divert my attention from my own dimension indefinitely.  You _must_ become the Sorcerer Supreme, as quickly as possible.”

 

“Have you stopped time here, as well?  I never asked you that.  I mean, this is an entirely other dimension.”

 

“I have stopped time within all dimensions that stand within the flow of time.  Some dimensions, however, including some of those most dangerous to you, do not stand within time, and thus are unaffected.  Which is why the hurry: unaffected by the stoppage of time, they continue to hunt you.”

 

“So everyone, everywhere -- _within time  --_ is currently cooling their heels and doesn’t even know it.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So if I was… _within time_ … right now… I wouldn’t be lying here in excruciating pain from this broken hip?  I mean, it would still be broken, but I wouldn’t be aware of it.”

 

Strange came closer and cast a spell over his broken hip and his burned arm.  “Just hold on, my lad,” he said.  “I’ll fix these right up.  I am a doctor, after all.”

 

Soon Loghain was able to stand, but not without pain.  “I’m not sure whether it’s fixed or not, Doc,” he said, stretching cautiously.

 

“A little reminder is never amiss, and the pain will leave you soon enough.  I think, perhaps, it’s time for you to see a little more of what it is you’re up against, if it can be done safely.  Excuse me for just a moment.”  Strange bowed, opened up a dark portal, stepped through, and disappeared.  The portal closed swiftly behind him.  It opened again in a few minutes, and the Doctor stepped through.  “All right, come with me.  It has all been arranged.  I would like to introduce you to the Sorcerer Supreme of another dimension, one of my earlier students.  It would be good for you perhaps to meet someone else who has ‘been through the ringer’ at least as quickly as I need you to go through it, and survived.”

 

Loghain sighed and stretched again.  “I’d like to meet him.”

 

Strange smiled an odd smile and opened the dark portal.  He stood aside and gestured for Loghain to precede him.  “After you, my boy.  Though the dimension beyond is without time, it should be safe enough with the Sorcerer Supreme’s protections combined with my own.”

 

“Just… walk through that hole in space into that… dark, nothing place beyond,” Loghain said.

 

“Just… _walk_ through,” Strange said.

 

“All… right.  Never let it be said that I ever let fear rule me,” Loghain said, and walked through.

 

“Hello,” someone said.  A lilting, feminine voice that reminded him somewhat in tone of the purr of a large housecat.  “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Mac Tir.”

 

He turned, almost afraid of what he would see.  A denizen of this black world would have to be something hideous, some beast with a thousand slimy tentacles and a million glowing eyes.  Instead, he saw what appeared to be a young human woman, perhaps thirty-five or forty, with flowing white hair, pale skin, and opal-colored eyes.  She wore long, white velvet robes, and she was smiling.

 

“My, you have lovely eyes, don’t you?” she said.  “I don’t think I have ever seen a pair of eyes that particular shade of… ice.”

 

Despite the natural attractiveness of her voice, and the beauty of her being, there was clearly nothing to the compliment beyond _paying_ a simple compliment.  Loghain was not fooled into thinking otherwise.  Nevertheless, he felt an uncomfortable stirring in his blood and body that he hadn’t felt in a very long time and _thought_ he would never feel again.

 

 _Answer, stupid,_ he thought.  _Say something._

_No, don’t!  You’ll just make a mess of it and make yourself a fool!_

_Drop your gaze, fool!  At this point you must be on the verge of making her uncomfortable!_

He dropped his gaze, and her tinkling laughter stood as his answer.  “You don’t know how to take a compliment, do you?” she said.

 

“No, I really don’t,” he found himself replying.

 

“It’s a common problem.  Stephen, on the other hand, tends to take a simple compliment to the _other_ extreme.  He believes he is deserving of all the _greatest_ of accolades and honors.”

 

“I am _trying_ to change that about myself, my dear,” Strange said as he stepped in from the other dimension.

 

“That will take a lot of changing, Stephen.  You can _start_ by referring to me as an _equal,_ instead of using a diminutive ‘my dear,’” the woman said.  “I _am_ a Sorcerer Supreme, same as you, after all.  And I _am_ in charge of a dimension far more chaotic than your own.”

 

Strange looked at Loghain.  “This is true.  My dear friend Clea here has the honor and tribulation of being the Sorcerer Supreme of this, the Dark Dimension, very probably the most dangerous of _all_ dimensions, though that is a highly debatable designation.”

 

Loghain looked at the darkness pressing in on all sides.  “Well, they named the place right, at least.”

 

“Cheerful, isn’t it?” Clea said, laughing.

 

“You _chose_ to live here?” Loghain asked of her.

 

She shook her head, her hair falling in waves all around her face.  “I was born here.  It is my home.  It the only place I could _possibly_ live for the whole of my life.”

 

“This doesn’t look like the sort of place where humans could live.”

 

“I am not human,” she said.  “This isn’t what I really look like here in this world, typically.  This is the form I assume in _Stephen’s_ world, for comfort and safety.  I assume it now for _your_ comfort and safety.  Humans aren’t as wide-spread throughout the omniverse as they usually are on the individual worlds on which they live.”

 

“Omniverse?” Loghain said.

 

“One single term to draw together all the many universes that exist throughout the many dimensions there are,” Clea explained.  “Humans are truly outnumbered.  Actually, the most widespread single form of sentient life is the dragon.  They are found in more dimensions, on more worlds, in more forms, than any other being.  Perhaps this is because they are more ancient than any other being.”

 

“People like to talk to me about dragons for some reason,” Loghain said, still carefully looking at the lack of scenery and not at her.

 

“Possibly because of the small dragon on your shoulder,” Clea said, laughing again.  “More probably because your spirit is very draconic in nature.”

 

“My spirit.  You can see my spirit.”

 

She laughed.  “You doubt such things?  You’ve seen so much, and still you doubt our powers?”

 

“I have… a lot of doubts.  I’m rather built that way.  Thick-headed.”

 

“Well, expelling some of those doubts is why you are here,” Strange said.  “Clea, may we see… the prisoner, please?”

 

Clea sighed.  “If you truly think it wise, Stephen.  But you be _damned certain_ you’ve got your wards up, too.  I’ll not have Father escape because _you_ wanted to give your new student a scare.”

 

“This… ‘prisoner’… is your father?” Loghain said.

 

“Indeed,” Clea said sadly.  “I am the daughter and only offspring of the dread Dormammu.  I am also his jailor.  It is a difficult task.  He was the Sorcerer Supreme of this dimension before me, and he has power almost beyond equal.  Bringing him into containment was… _harrowing,_ to say the least.  I could not have done it without the help of my friends and fellow sorcerers.”

 

“Clea is the only one of us who could ever _maintain_ his containment,” Strange said.

 

“It remains a struggle.”

 

“If I may ask a stupid question, who is the ‘dread Dormammu?’” Loghain said.

 

“One of the worst of the evil forces arrayed against the dimensions where time flows as it ought,” Strange said.  “If it weren’t for his jailing, he would be after you now, and it is doubtful in the extreme that I would be able to keep him from you.  There are other powers like him out there, gunning for you, but he was most likely the greatest and the greediest.  Taking him out of the picture as we did years ago saved you much pain and terror.”

 

“That bad, eh?”

 

“That bad.”

 

“And you want me to get a good peek at him.  Kind of like taking the kiddies on a tour of Fort Drakon so they can get scared straight, eh?”

 

Strange nodded.  “Something like that, yes.  You remain so _tightly_ closed off.”

 

“So what can I expect?  Just to prepare myself a bit.”

 

“Ordinarily he would look like what you expect him to look like.  But you have never seen him before and don’t _know_ what to expect, and you really don’t have much of an imagination.  So I have placed a spell on the cell where he is held, and instead of seeing what _you_ expect, you will see instead an amalgam of that plus what _I_ see when I gaze upon him,” Strange said, “which has altered and grown worse with encounter after encounter.  It is still not truly bad enough to capture the essence of his being.  I don’t know that the human imagination can do justice to his evil.”

 

“Why don’t you let in what _she_ sees?  He’s _her_ father,” Loghain said, with a nod to Clea.

 

“The denizens of this dimension, Clea and her father included, exist without form as we know it.  This truly is a ‘Dark’ Dimension -- everything within it is blackness, without shape or form, only power and being.  They ‘see’ each other, in a way we as humans do not understand.  Clea sharing how her father appears to her would be like explaining your exact favorite shade of chartreuse to someone profoundly blind from birth.”

 

_“Chartreuse?”_

 

“Never mind, my boy, just come along.”

 

They didn’t exactly walk, but rather floated through this dark nothingness to wherever the Sorcerers Supreme were leading him.  “I have one more question, if I may,” Loghain said.

 

“Fire away,” Strange said.

 

“If Clea sees in an entirely different way from we humans, how can she see us?”

 

She laughed.  Laughter seemed to come easily to her.  “In human form, I see exactly as do you or Stephen.  Call it a gift of the magic involved.  I can still see with my natural senses, as well.  It can be rather… _disconcerting,_ particularly if I have been away from human form for an extended period.  Your human depth perception is odd, to say the least, and your lack of peripheral sense is downright _dangerous,_ I think.”

 

They seemed to reach their destination, more darkness within the endless darkness, as far as Loghain could tell, and put their hands up with their fingers forked, making glyphs of shifting patterns and translucent colors in a wall, or perhaps reinforcement of a wall preexisting.

 

“Are you so certain he will show himself?” Clea said.  “I have not your concept of how long he has been imprisoned, but I have not seen him since we closed him in.  I only know that he is beyond these walls, sulking.”

 

“Trust me, my dear -- he won’t be able to resist.  Come closer, Mister Mac Tir.  I’d like you to get an unrestricted view.”

 

Loghain approached the invisible wall cautiously, unsure of what to expect.  Nothing happened for a time, and then, from out of nowhere, with an ungodly roar, a monstrous creature appeared.  Loghain flew backward, propelled by his own terror, and screamed as he had never screamed before.

 

It had a head meters high, composed of flowing lava, and a body hardly distinguishable from the blackness surrounding it.  Disconcerting, but none of that was what bothered Loghain.  No.  This incarnation of ultimate evil bothered him because it appeared to him _wearing his face, his_ younger body, the scars _he_ bore, all visible against the darkness somehow blacker even than the color black itself.  _His_ pale blue eyes looked out at him from within the lava, cold and empty of all emotion except perhaps a kind of raw, sardonic humor.  Worse than all of this, the creature was naked, and sported a number of massive, erect penises all shiny and ready to cause havoc and spread pain.

 

“You didn’t end up taking much from me at all, really,” Strange said.  “I suppose your own fears were worse than mine, uninformed or not.”

 

“The penises are a nice touch,” Clea said.  “I’ll never look at my father the same way again.  I think this is the first time I have ever encountered a human male who has ever seen his own sexual equipment as anything other than a marvelous gift of the Supreme Being, whatever or whomever they may be.  Interesting.”

 

“Did you bring someone for me to play with, Strange?” the monster said, in an appropriately booming voice that Loghain heard as his own.  “Tell me, little man… do I not encompass all that you most fear?  All your horrors are come to me!”

 

Loghain was still screaming, but he was not without his senses.  He remembered his sling ring.  He opened up a portal back to the Sanctum library and crawled through on his hands and knees and slammed the portal shut behind him.

 

Another portal opened a few moments later, and Strange walked through, looking almost as contrite as he did after the mind-probing debacle.  “You see what sort of forces you’re facing off against, now?  There are others like that out there,” he said.  “Many.  Not so powerful, perhaps, but equally evil.  They will devour your world if you allow them.”

 

He held out his hand.  Pepper flew off of it to land on Loghain’s shoulder, trilling shrilly and angrily.  “You left your little friend behind in your haste to leave.  He is quite miffed at you.”

 

Loghain reached up and gently stroked the little dragon’s tiny head.  “Sorry, Pep.  Didn’t mean to.”  He dropped his gaze.  “Sorry that I… flipped out back there, Doc.  You said I’d see what I expected, but I… I didn’t expect _that._ That thing was… it was _me.”_

 

“Perhaps I should have foreseen that, knowing how you see yourself as a monster,” Strange said.

 

“I never would have thought my idea of _ultimate evil_ would be myself.”

 

“From my glimpse of your inner psyche, I might well have known, but I might have expected him to have an Orlesian accent at the least,” Strange said.  “Loghain, you have led a difficult life, and your position as a leader of men has led you to perform many difficult tasks and make many difficult choices, some of which may have been the wrong choices to make, but you are not a monster.  The mere fact that you are _afraid_ of what you believe you have become proves that.”

 

“What… _exactly_ … is coming after my world?  There must be something, or you wouldn’t be pushing so hard.  Something more than random demon attacks and greedy entities that have always wanted it but never come after it yet.  Something wants it _now.”_

 

Strange sighed.  “I didn’t want you to know what you were facing, yet, but perhaps now is the right time after all.  There is, for lack of a better word, an ‘elf’ who wishes to destroy your world, in order to remake it in the image that he desires.  The image that it once bore, long ages past, when elves ruled.  He’s been plotting this for some time, but he is drawing near his ultimate goal at last.”

 

Loghain shook his head.  “I don’t understand.  How can an elf destroy the entire world?”

 

“He is not merely an elf, if you could say that he ever truly was.  He is more of an abomination, but quite an unusual one.  The only other power in your world strong enough to stop him was the being known as Flemeth, but he tricked her and stole her power -- now she sleeps to regain it.  I do not know how familiar you are with elven theology, but Flemeth is an abomination conjoined with the goddess Mythal, the Protector.  The elf himself, whose name is Solas, is conjoined with the god Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf or Trickster.  I do not know whether these are actually the beings involved in the act of creating your world, but they are incredibly powerful, essentially immortal, and if he wants to destroy your world, he will do so if someone does not stop him.  Only a competent Sorcerer Supreme would have sufficient power to foil him _and_ protect your world from everyday attacks like those you suffered today, which will increase the _moment_ a Sorcerer Supreme sets foot on Thedas’ soil.”

 

“So… you’re training me to stop a god.”

 

“I don’t know if he really is a ‘god,’ but he was and is worshipped by some in your world, yes, and he was and is… incredibly powerful.  He created the Veil, the very separation between your world and the Fade, countless ages ago.  After expending so much power, he had to sleep for ages to recuperate.”

 

“How does even the greatest of sorcerers have the power to foil such a being?”

 

“The _greatest_ of sorcerers, Mister Mac Tir, become Sorcerers Supreme, and Sorcerers Supreme are very much like unto gods themselves, cut short only by their own mortality… and their own _morality.”_

 

“That’s… disturbing.”

 

“It’s true, like it or not.  Clea and I are the more… _unlettered_ Sorcerers Supreme amongst the many throughout the omniverse, and the things we are capable of would frighten you literally to _death_ if we were to make you aware of them at this early stage.  You must learn to do them as well.  You believe yourself a monster because of the assassinations, the orders, the abandonments… you do not know what a monster is truly capable of.  You will need to hang on tight to your sense of right and wrong when you have the power to crush a world with your force of will.”

 

“Crush a world.”

 

“With enough concentration, mana, and the right -- or _wrong_ \-- spells, yes.”

 

“I’ve never been too good with morals,” Loghain said, trying to hide the desperation in his words behind a weak smile.

 

“On the contrary.  You are a very moral man.  A little bit _excessively_ black and white, perhaps, but that’s hardly a surprise given the life you’ve led.  I think you can learn see the _grey_ in the world.  I think you already know it’s there.”

 

“There’s no grey in the Dark Dimension,” Loghain said.

 

“There’s Clea.”

 

“What about Clea?”

 

“She’s from the Dark Dimension.  Would you say she’s evil?”

 

“Well, no, I don’t think so.”

 

“She’s no saint, either, believe me.  She’s a being, very like any human, with character traits and a few flaws that make her unique.  I don’t exactly understand the process of ‘procreation’ within the Dark Dimension, but she is nothing like her father.  Yet she is a native denizen of the Dark Dimension, and there are countless others like her there, beings who are neither evil nor excessively good.  It would be ‘prudent’ to end the threat of Dormammu forever.  The only way to do that would be to destroy the Dark Dimension, for he is without time, without age, without end, and far too powerful for any other means of destruction known.  Tell me: would _you_ destroy the Dark Dimension, knowing that?  Say, if the containment spells grew too weak to hold him.”

 

Loghain didn’t like being asked that question, and it showed on his face.  The tactician in him demanded that the dimension be destroyed, that half-crazed part of him that demanded that he put the welfare of Ferelden above all things, even above the welfare of its _people_ if necessary.  But the rest of him, the parts of him that still allowed his heart to feel, couldn’t help but realize that countless lives -- an entire _world_ of innocents -- were dependant on the answer.

 

He shook his head.  “No.  Not as long as _someone_ was still left to fight him, no.  I couldn’t do that,” he said.  “Not even if it _was_ ‘prudent.’”

 

Strange smiled.  “You see?  You _can_ see the color grey.”

 

“Well, if… I’ve got to learn to kick a god’s ass, I… suppose I’d better hit the books,” Loghain said.

 

“First there’s the library to consider.  You made quite the mess during your little battle, and you know what we do when we make a mess, correct?” Strange said gaily.

 

“We clean it up,” Loghain said, resigned, already moving to begin picking up books and reshelf them.  It was very late by the time he made it to bed that night, to discover that his room had been laid out with a straw pallet.  Either by his battle with the demon or by surviving his shock at seeing Dormammu, he had apparently earned his first “luxury.”  He lowered himself onto it with a heartfelt groan and was out cold in moments, with Pepper curled up in the hollow of his neck.  He had horrible dreams, but with a little luck and perhaps some sorcerous intervention, he did not remember a thing about them come the dawn.


	10. Familiar Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loghain gets another lesson in dedication and a couple new things to clean up after. Yeul and Caius come from Final Fantasy XIII series, and Displacer Beast and Blink Dog concepts are from Dungeons and Dragons.

_Inhale together, pull the energy up the Inner Flute, hold your breath, and visualize the light spiraling in your pelvis. Let it fill the area with healing warmth.  Gradually expand the spirals of light so that they encompass the sex and naval centers of your partner.  Imagine that your energies are beginning to melt and merge in this area.  Each time you exhale together, be sure to send the energy and light down the Inner Flute and out through your genitals._

Loghain closed his eyes and rubbed the skin around his eyes and the bridge of his nose. “Sounds like a good trick to learn,” he said out loud.  “I never can find a damn candle when I need one.”

 

Pepper let out a wheezy snore from where he was perched asleep on his shoulder and kicked out with his legs as he shifted position restlessly. Fully mature now, he was a metallic rainbow of colors for which Loghain had few names, blues and purples and pinks and greens in many shades, swirling amongst each other like an abalone shell.  Loghain realized the little dragon had the right idea.  He had skipped out on his sleep hours for study the last two nights in a row, and it was well past his bedtime now.  He closed the book and stood up to reshelve it. _Sexual healing._ A subject he could see having some relevance in _someone’s_ life, perhaps, but not in his own.  He couldn’t remember when or why it had been assigned, he was much too tired and there were far, _far_ too many assignments, but it was, in his view, a waste of energy and precious time.

 

Oh, but he was tired. A few hours sleep and he’d get back to it in the morning, when he wasn’t so growly.  He found the space on the proper shelf and stretched to put the book back in its place, but as he did so he felt a hard tug at his ankle.  He replaced the book and looked down.

 

A puppy had its teeth sunk into his trouser cuff, wrestling with it ferociously, clipped tail wagging. It noticed him noticing it and released him, licked its chops, and gave a soft bark, turning limpid amber-colored eyes to his.  It raised a forepaw, lolled its pink tongue and perked its folded ears, and pawed at his leg.  It cocked its head expectantly.

 

“Where did you come from?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. The pup was a mabari, and he knew Strange was at the bottom of this.  He had said quite definitively that he didn’t _want_ a mabari.  But… maybe this was his familiar.  Nothing else yet had come to him, and Strange kept dropping hints that it should happen soon.  Even Wong said to expect _something_ to show up.

 

The pup whined. He knelt down and picked it up.  It was a female, deep dark russet in color, almost black, with a narrow splash of white across her snout and another across her chest.  “Aren’t you a pretty girl?” he said, smiling despite himself as the pup tried her best to lick his face.

 

“What are you going to name her?” Strange said behind him.

 

He sighed. “You know, I never get tired of that sneaking up thing you do to me,” he said.

 

“Pepper’s all grown up now. I shall have to teach you how to make sure he can’t die or be killed while you live.  Once this little girl is all grown up, you can put the same spell on her.”

 

“This isn’t my familiar. This is… a _companion._ Because I’m so terribly lonely and antisocial.  This is you interfering in my life again.”

 

 _“This_ is a lonely mabari pup that had nothing and no one.  She lived in Orlais, the recent purchase of a nobleman who only wanted her to be bred to his game hounds.  She would never have imprinted to him.  She needs someone to care for her who will properly appreciate her.  She is infinitely more likely to imprint to you than her former master.  She clearly likes you very much already.”

 

“If time is stopped, then you’ve known about her all the while. Why now?” Loghain said, gathering his objections as he felt himself weakening.

 

“Because now you are ready for the responsibility. Pepper can better take care of himself now, and your studies are progressing nicely.  I liked that ‘candle’ crack, by the way.  Very dry.  Your sense of humor about all of this seems to be improving lately.”

 

“Well. No sense being… what’s the name?  Osprey the Grouch?  Forever, I suppose.”

 

“Oscar.”

 

“What?”

 

“The name. Oscar.  The Grouch.”

 

“I thought an oscar was a type of fancy fish.”

 

“An ‘osprey’ is a bird that _eats_ fish.  You really don’t have any men named ‘Oscar’ in your world?” Strange said.

 

“Not that I’ve ever met. I suppose I know why he’s grouchy.”

 

“Is that right, Loghain?” Strange said, with a smile and a nod. “Well, anyway, what are you going to name _her?_ A smart dog needs a good name.”

 

“This isn’t merely a _smart dog,”_ Loghain said.  “This is a _mabari._ I can’t just come up with my usual, off-the-cuff insult of a name for a _mabari._ She’s not a miniature dragon you couldn’t possibly think of anything else to name it but ‘Pepper.’  I really don’t have the first clue what to name her.”

 

Strange held out his hand, and in the usual flash of blue magic a small, thin notebook laptop appeared balanced on his palm. He opened it up and turned it on.  “What’s that thing?” Loghain asked.

 

“A computer. Not the most powerful of them, but a good one nevertheless.  Good enough for our purposes.  There is a game loaded onto its internal memory that has in it a random name generator, quite an extensive one.  I’ll fire it up, take a look through it, and give you some possibilities.  Then all you have to do is choose the one you like best.”

 

“A game? Like… Wicked Grace?”

 

“Um… more like an MMORPG. That’s… far too complicated for me to explain to you just now.”

 

“You’re tasked with defending time and space and the fate of an entire dimension… but you play games.”

 

“A sorcerer’s life is a long one, and even _our_ lives can’t be doom and death and danger at _all_ times.  Developing hobbies is something you should seriously consider, Mister Mac Tir.  In any event, this is not my computer and it is not my game.  It’s Wong’s.”

 

A little button-pressing, and soon Strange seemed to find whatever it was he was looking for on the tiny shiny black folding flat box. “Here we go.  How about… Anubis?”

 

“That’s a name?”

 

“Anubis was the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the dead.”

 

“Oh. Yes, I remember Wong telling about Egyptian gods while kicking my head in during training.  He likes to jabber on about alternate theologies while beating the piss out of me, for some reason.  It would be interesting if I were in a better position to pay attention.  But this is a _female_ pup, and that was a _male_ god, correct?”

 

“You place too much import on gender stereotypes. All right, how about… Antoinette?”

 

His only response was a low growl that did not come from the puppy or the sleeping dragon. “All right, all right.  If that does not work for you, there are other names.  Poppy?  Gilgamesh?  Harriet?  Triumph?  Vex?  Ned?  Daisy?  Barry?  Jester?  Maisey?  Unger?  Killroy?”

 

Loghain raised his free hand in surrender. “Triumph.  The dog’s name is Triumph.  Just… stop.”

 

Strange smiled in his own special triumph, closed the flat box, and it vanished in another flash of blue magic. “I am sure you will be the best of friends,” he said.

 

“This is getting to be quite the collection of animal friends, don’t you think?” Loghain said. “No cats as of yet, but people are going to start thinking I’m peculiar.”

 

“Haven’t you always been somewhat peculiar?” Strange said.

 

“What happens if I… ‘attract,’ I suppose… a familiar?”

 

Strange shook his head. “I don’t follow.  What should happen?”

 

“Animal after animal. Is there any guarantee they’ll get along?  I don’t even know yet how Pepper will react when he meets the pup.”

 

“You can get them to cooperate. All they need is training and conditioning.  A familiar won’t even need that.”

 

“Isn’t Pepper sentient? If he doesn’t want the competition, he’ll make it known. _Painfully._ And no amount of ‘training’ will do anything about it.”

 

Strange nodded. “Possibly.  But I think you underestimate your little friend.  Perhaps he cannot be _trained_ like an animal, but he can _reasoned with,_ like a being.”

 

“What happens to sorcerers who _don’t_ attract a familiar?  I never asked that before.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You said my familiar would make me more powerful. Would I ever be powerful enough to be the Sorcerer Supreme you envision me being if I never end up with a familiar of my own?”

 

Strange dropped his gaze. “That’s hard to say,” he said.  “I shouldn’t worry about it, however.  I do not think it likely that _you,_ of all people, will not gain an animal familiar.  You bond easily with animals, and vice versa.  It is a cliché, but you have something that could truly be called ‘animal magnetism.’  It draws animals _and_ people as well. _Something_ will join with you, sooner rather than later.  Even if not, there are other ways to increase magical power.  Even if you do gain a familiar, I fully intend to utilize some of the safer of those ways, the ones I know will work for you.”

 

“Trying to turn me into a Mystic Superman,” Loghain said, letting his weariness show.

 

“You found Ciaran’s comic book collection,” Strange accused.

 

“I found a collection of strange picture books wrapped in clear foil so you couldn’t touch them. A great many of them had this ‘Superman’ fellow on them, and made great claims about him.  I don’t know who this ‘Ciaran’ is.”

 

“One of the Masters who ordinarily lives and studies here. Currently he is in the London sanctum, so that you have your privacy to study without distraction.  He loves his comic books, especially Superman.”

 

“London?”

 

“A large city in a land across the ocean. You don’t know where you are, do you?  I shall have to show you, but that can wait ‘til tomorrow.  You’re worn out.  Go to bed, my boy.  You’re doing very well in your studies, very well indeed, but it won’t do you any good at all if you kill yourself with overwork.”

 

“How do I tend to the pup’s ‘duties?’ _I_ don’t even get to go outside.  Is she to be litter box trained like Pepper?”

 

“You have the proper training accoutrements in your room. Just get her to use them.  Since she is a mabari, it shouldn’t be difficult.”

 

“I hope she’s gone recently. I’m bushed, I wouldn’t like to be pissed on while I’m asleep.”

 

“I’ll ensure that doesn’t happen. Go on, now.  You’ve had a long three days.”

 

Strange disappeared and so too did the room. Loghain was left standing in his own bedroom, which now featured a small rounded cushion for the puppy to sleep upon and a mat made to look like grass for her to do her business on.  He showed her this and let her get a good sniff of it before putting her on the cushion and curling up to sleep on his own bed of straw.  She immediately abandoned the cushion and came over to curl up under his chin very near the spot where Pepper lay in the hollow of his shoulder.  The dragon must have finally caught a whiff of the pup, for he woke with a snort and a puff of smoke, growled, favored Loghain with the dirtiest of dirty looks, then sniffed the puppy all over, which she allowed, taking great interest in this new friend.  The dragon snorted again, gave what looked for all the world like a shrug of the shoulders, and settled in once more to sleep.  Loghain was already halfway there himself.

 

In the morning he woke, not rested nearly enough but at least with a bit more energy than he might have had should he not have slept at all, and conjured food for both his companions. He himself still did not eat breakfast -- he did not know if breakfast and dinner were considered ‘luxuries’ to be earned, but he was granted lunch and nothing more, barley and beans each and every day, one small serving.  It was enough to live on, and barley and beans was the type of food to keep a man strong, but still, he would happily _kill_ for a good meal.  This stringent diet was clearly intended to instill proper discipline.  He wondered when he would be construed as having enough discipline to eat whatever he wanted at regular mealtimes.

 

He headed for the doctor’s study for his morning practical lessons, walking because he preferred it to using his sling ring over the relatively short distance even though it was an enormous house, but Strange met him in the grand foyer instead.

 

“I think perhaps you should know a little something about where you are in my world. Let’s take a short walk outside, shall we?  I can’t unstop time as of yet, so everything will be frozen.  I know that bothered you in Haven.  There are a lot more people outside the sanctum.  Do you think you’ll be all right?”

 

“How is it you can stop time at all? You said way back in the beginning that playing with time is dangerous.  You’ve had everything on hold for halfway to forever now,” Loghain said.

 

“I’ve stopped time everywhere that time exists, as I’ve told you. Playing with time is different.  Going into the past, changing history, entering the future and altering the past.  It creates paradoxes -- time twists that warp the very fabric of space and time -- that could potentially destroy the entire structure of the omniverse.  Stopping time in one place and not all could potentially do something similar.  This is why I had to stop time everywhere.  When I allow time to flow naturally again, no alterations will have been made, except that you will be far better trained than you were previously, but that is no harm, as you will be a sorcerer, and as a sorcerer, you will live in isolation for most of the rest of your life, not altering anything.”

 

“Isolation.”

 

“Indeed, my boy. Most of the world will not know you continue to exist.  They cannot.  If they knew anything about the power at your command, can you imagine their reaction?” Strange said.

 

Loghain let out an exasperated chuff of laughter. “Panic.  Chaos.  Disorder.  Templars everywhere.  Maybe an Exalted March.”

 

“Exactly. And so must your future students also accept this life of isolation.  Once you have built a small community of sorcerers, it will be easier for them, but at first it will surely be very lonely.  And you must be _very_ careful in choosing your candidates, because the power is _highly_ corrupting.  Any weakness in discipline, any weakness in personality or morality, and you will lose your student to the dark side of sorcery.”

 

“They’ll go bad, use it for the power it gives them over others. But you’re not worried about that with me.  Why not?  I’m not the most moral of people.”

 

“I’m always worried. I’m worried about that possibility with myself,” Strange said.  “I worry less with you than with anyone.  You have done terrible things, but you’ve done them always for the most selfless of reasons, even if you were wrong.”

 

“And you’re not worried that I’ll use these wondrous godlike powers you’re giving me… _wrongly_ … as long as I use them selflessly.”

 

“I trust you to use your brains and your heart to know the right way to use them,” Strange said, with a smile and a clap on Loghain’s shoulder. “Come now.  I’d like to see your reaction to your first view of an Earthen modern-day city.”

 

“Is it so much different from a Thedosian city?” Loghain asked.

 

“Well, there’s a great deal more glass. Earthen people in modern times love glass.  And… there are more people living in this one city than live in the whole of Orlais.”

 

“The whole of _Orlais?”_ Loghain said.  “That’s… pretty big.  How does that compare to a place like Minrathous?”

 

“Minrathous boasts a population of only about three hundred seventy-eight thousand, counting slaves, which the census takers of Minrathous do not do. The current population of the city beyond our front door is approximately eight point five million, a bit more than the entire population, slaves included, of the Tevinter Empirium.  Our world is more extensive than your own, and life is not so difficult, and perhaps that explains why we are so much more populous, despite not having the variety of races of your world.”

 

“Eight and a half _million_ people, and they’re all human?  No dwarves, no elves… no bleeding qunari?  And all in one little place?  This is either the most orderly place in all the omniverse or it’s a mighty pit of the living Void,” Loghain said.

 

Strange laughed. “Well, not quite either, actually, although there are those who might disagree on your last point.  Come on, my boy -- it’s better to see than to speculate.”

 

“How widespread is this city? How many feet of space did they pack all these many people into?” Loghain asked as Strange led him to the door.

 

“Miles. Over three hundred square miles, actually.  This house is actually in an area specifically known as ‘Greenwich Village.’  All the many different areas of New York City have specific names.  They’re known as ‘boroughs.’  There is a certain amount of… separatism between the boroughs.  The people from this borough and that borough don’t always wish to get along with each other.  But when something nasty happens to affect the entire city as a whole, they do tend to pull together and forget their petty differences.”

 

“Who leads them?”

 

“Oh, the city has a mayor, and a system of city governance, but I think you meant overall. This nation is ruled by democracy… more or less.  Its people take part in elections to determine who will rule as Senators, House representatives, and above them all, the commander in chief, the President.  But just as in Thedas, this is not the only nation, and not the only system of governance.  There are still Kings and Queens in some places, though where they are most visible, their power is limited by a somewhat _different_ type of democracy.  Rule of the _elite,_ more or less.  In most ways, it’s the way it works here, too, but the Americans try to hide it behind folksy talk and White Bright smiles.”

 

“Are you… ‘American?’” Loghain asked.

 

“Yes, actually. I was born in the state of Pennsylvania while my parents were on vacation -- _why_ my parents were on vacation when my mother was eight months pregnant is a question I never got an answer for -- and I was raised in my home state of Nebraska.  My… _accent_ and inflections, however… come from years of study abroad at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.  By all rights I should still speak like a Midwestern American, but I… adopted this more… _cultured_ way of speaking by personal preference.”

 

“What’s a state?” Loghain asked.

 

“This nation is divided into fifty of them. They are parcels of semi self-governed land that makes it easier to govern the whole.  It is a very _large_ nation.  Larger than the whole of Thedas, and not the largest in terms of land mass _or_ populace on Earth.  All these questions are taking up valuable non-time, and they could be answered more readily by books from the library.  Let’s take this outdoors now.”

 

“All right, I’ll put a lid on my curiosity,” Loghain said, and walked out the door.

 

The first thing he noticed was the large, red, metal box on rubber wheels standing right in front of the door, a few feet away. Loghain had never seen anything like it, and it absorbed his attention for the first few moments as he stepped through the doorframe, until he realized the sense of enclosure he felt.  He looked at the buildings and saw how pressed together they were, edifices of brick and stone and glass, squeezed in tight and tall.  And people everywhere, frozen in place as they went about their business.  And everywhere along the smooth stone road, seemingly endless numbers of the colored metal boxes on wheels.

 

“Welcome to Bleecker Street, Mister Mac Tir. Something of a tourist destination, really,” Strange said.

 

“It’s… it’s a _pit._ There’s garbage everywhere,” Loghain said.

 

“It’s more than a full-time job, keeping a city this size clean. Certain places could use a bit of renovation, perhaps, but surely you could say the same of parts of Denerim?  Come -- let’s look around.”

 

“How do you keep your activities hidden in a… ‘tourist’ destination?” Loghain asked as Strange stepped fully onto the street with him.

 

Strange turned and gestured at the mansion squeezed into the narrow space between two brick buildings, as out of place and as obvious as could be. “This is 177a Bleecker Street.  That’s the address, for purposes of locating and mailing.  However, no one who is not meant to find it ever could.  It exists beyond space in a twist in the fabric of this universe.  The people you see on this street cannot see it, even when time is unfrozen.  They can see _177_ Bleecker Street, but they do not know a thing about 177a.”

 

“Aren’t twists in the fabric of space as dangerous as twists in time?” Loghain asked.

 

“Not quite. In any event, they’re allowed for things like this.  You will have to create one yourself, when you build your first Thedosian sanctum.”

 

“What are the metal boxes on the street?” Loghain said, skillfully avoiding for now the question of _how_ he would be expected to do that.

 

“Cars. Automobiles.”

 

“Uh hm. And what does that mean?” Loghain asked.

 

“You can figure it out. Parse the word.  ‘Automobiles,’” Strange said, with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

Loghain thought for a moment. “Well… ‘auto’… means… ‘self’… and ‘mobile’ means… ‘moving.’  ‘Self-moving?’  Do you mean those big metal boxes move by themselves?  But you said these people don’t know how to use magic.”

 

“It’s not magic. It’s engineering.”

 

“Engineering? _Human_ engineering?” Loghain said, eyes wide.

 

“Human engineering. Humans have made many great innovations through imagination and intellect in this world.  They have even harnessed the power of flight, and have sent men to their own moon, and unmanned probes to distant planets orbiting their own star.”

 

“They must be very smart.”

 

“They are no smarter than your own people, but they have been around longer, and their civilization has had more time to advance. For every problem they have solved, they have created at least one more.  They’re killing this planet by degrees, and they can’t even agree on just how that’s happening.”

 

“This city is… close and tight… but I’ll admit I was expecting something more impressive from your big talk,” Loghain said.

 

“Oh, well, let me show you the _heart_ of ‘the Big Apple,’” Strange said, and teleported them both.  Suddenly they were both standing in the middle of a street surrounded by buildings that challenged the very heavens.  Loghain looked up to try and see their tops and fell backwards onto his ass, made dizzy by the heights.

 

“Maker’s hairy, salty balls,” he said. “Look at all that glass.  What do if the _ground_ shakes?”

 

“That’s not a frequent problem around here,” Strange said. “That said, in areas where it _is_ a frequent problem, such as on the other side of the nation, they have engineering techniques to reinforce their buildings.  That said, Mother Nature has her way with Mankind’s best efforts more than frequently.”

 

“You could see just about forever from the top of one of these buildings. They’re as tall as mountains,” Loghain said, cautiously climbing back to his feet.

 

“Not quite,” Strange said, smiling. “Would you like to see the view?”

 

“Definitely.”

 

Another quick teleport, and they were at the peak of the Chrysler building. “Maker.  How did they build something so tall?  It barely seems like it’s anything but glass and a little bit of stone,” Loghain said, giving a cautious glance at the curve of the roof beneath his feet before gazing out to the far horizon.

 

“Steel and reinforced concrete, mostly,” Strange said. “The stone and glass are to make it pretty.”

 

“Maker, what a city. I _hate_ cities, but… what a city.  I can’t imagine keeping order in just this one place.  Your President has to keep order in many such places, over fifty states?  It must drive him mad.”

 

“If he’s a good President, I expect it does. He has help, and hindrance, from the House and the Senate.  Most cities aren’t this large, though.  This one city has a larger population than many of the states.  There are larger cities, however, particularly when you look worldwide.  Not all of them built in quite this way, but with greater population.”

 

Strange allowed him a few more moments to take in the sight, and then returned them both to the interior of the sanctum, to a room that Loghain had never seen before, filled with doors all marked with different symbols like the window above the entrance to the sanctum itself but individual. Strange gestured to the doors.  “These doors each lead to the other sanctums all around this world.  One in Mexico City, one in London, one in Katmandu, and one in Beijing.  Each can be accessed from any of the others at any time.  They all stand outside of time and space, in the largest population centers as close as possible to the confluence of the most powerful ley lines on the planet.”

 

“Ley lines. The planetary power grid,” Loghain said, recalling his studies.

 

“Precisely.”

 

“And at these other sanctums are other sorcerers, calmly going about their day-to-day lives and studies, just… staying out of my way.”

 

Strange nodded. “For now.  Some of them always stay at these other sanctums, for they must always be guarded, others travel between them, learning from the masters who have different things to teach at each.  Others would normally live here, learning from Wong and myself.”

 

“I’m interrupting their studies.”

 

“All of our other students are currently at Master status, and can continue their studies on their own. We made certain of that before we came to you.  It is one of the reasons why we ended up having to wait until you were at the threshold of death, and your foe was at the threshold of success.”

 

“Well. Thanks for that.  I don’t know that I couldn’t have stood having another student or two about rather than being so very old and fragile while I’m trying to learn all these complicated new things and a totally new martial art that requires complete function of my entire body.”

 

“You’re getting better all the time. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it.  You’re getting stronger.  Your body is already as strong as it was when you were in your sixties.  Soon it will be stronger even than that.  And your mind is growing stronger all the time is well, your memory and recall improving to that of your younger days.  You have not noticed it, because in your twice-daily shaving rituals you do not deign to use a mirror, but your hair has begun to grow in darker as well.  The salt is more and more liberally peppered with black.”

 

Loghain blinked twice. “My hair is growing in dark.”

 

Strange nodded. “All the while you’re getting stronger, you’re growing your power.  Your body reacts to that.  A powerful sorcerer may never grow old in appearance.”

 

“But sorcerers don’t live forever.”

 

“Correct. They die of many causes.  The most common is excessive use of their own power.  Over time, their mana pool will simply… dry up.  When it does, the forces keeping them alive throughout their excessive lifespans fail.  Then too, they are not capable of protecting themselves from every threat.  Even the most powerful Sorcerers Supreme may be killed by outside forces.  And sometimes they must sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the universe.”

 

“Or for the greater good of their students…?” Loghain said.

 

Strange sighed. “You refer to my own Master’s death.  I do not know why she felt my life was worth saving over her own.  I probably never will.  I can just… try to be worth the sacrifice.”

 

“Is self-sacrifice a common death for Sorcerers Supreme?”

 

Strange chuckled. “The ones I know to have died, I’m afraid so, but my pool of reference is rather shallow.  Perhaps I should introduce you to the Sorcerer Supreme who knows _most_ of self-sacrifice.”

 

“I would say Clea has a pretty tight grip on self-sacrifice,” Loghain said. “She can’t waver for a minute or her father breaks loose to cause havoc throughout the omniverse again.”

 

“This is true. But there is another who is the master of a more peaceful dimension, yet carries a heavier burden.  The sorcerer who watches over all.”

 

“Watches over all? Isn’t that the job of _any_ Sorcerer Supreme?”

 

“In a way. _Her_ way is different.  A Sorcerer Supreme typically looks after one world, one universe.  She sees every world, every universe.  And every outcome of every action.”

 

“A… _prophetess,_ then.  Like Andraste.”

 

“Very much so. And yet… very different.  Your Maker was not so cruel to his Bride as the Sorcerer Supreme’s goddess is to her.  Andraste only had to burn once.  The ‘Seeress,’ as she is known to the people of her world… has suffered many, many times, and will continue to do so until the end of time and space in her universe.”

 

“She’s immortal?”

 

“No. I will see if she will answer my summons and pay a brief visit to this dimension.  It will be easier for you to understand once you’ve met her, I think.  Once you’ve felt her power for yourself.”

 

“How many gods and goddesses are there? Are they all real?”

 

“Not all. Even the ones that are may not truly be ‘the true God,’ just very powerful extra-dimensional beings that meddle in the affairs of mortals within one dimension or another.  I don’t even know if there is ‘one true God,’ though the omniverse must have come from somewhere.  I do know that nearly every dimension believes in a being they know as some version of the ‘Creator,’ but it is very easy to come with such an idea to answer the major question of where life and the world comes from.”

 

“You don’t believe in the Maker?” Loghain asked.

 

“Do you?”

 

“Ha! Good question.  I really couldn’t tell you, but… I’ve seen plenty of crazy shit since I came here.  Seems more possible now than it ever did to me before.”

 

“That’s exactly the way I feel. Before I came to sorcery, I was an Atheist.  Now, I find myself much more willing to believe in possibilities.”

 

“You were going to try and introduce me to this Sorcerer?” Loghain reminded.

 

Strange forked his fingers and made a glyph in the air before him, in a pattern that Loghain did not recognize. The glyph disappeared and Strange relaxed.  “The message is sent,” he said.  “We have only to see if she answers.”

 

An inter-dimensional portal appeared, and two people stepped through. A tall, powerful man in black armor with a huge black sword and long black hair, and a small girl with long, silvery grey hair who wore a sheer veil over the lower half of her face.  She walked strangely, as though she’d overcome the weak-bone disease from early childhood or was carrying some extreme burden she could hardly bear the weight of.

 

“Hello, Stephen,” she said. Her voice was that of a young girl, but there was a certain sense of power in it, and a wisdom borne of years she didn’t have to her name.  “It is a pleasure to meet you face-to-face at long last, Loghain Mac Tir.”

 

“You know my name?” Loghain said.

 

“I have watched you for all my days, as have my forebears for all of theirs. They knew of your greatness when you were mucking stables at your home farm in Oswin, and frolicking with Adalla, your faithful mabari.  They knew how you would change your world forever.  They knew, and so too do I.”

 

“How is it you’re a Sorcerer Supreme? You’re only a child,” Loghain asked.

 

“I was born… with the combined powers and memories of all of my predecessors. All that they were, and all that I am, will be passed to the next to come.”

 

“This is Yeul, Loghain. Yeul is the only Sorcerer Supreme who never has to be trained, and never has to train another.  She sees the future due to the gifts granted her by the goddess Etro, but each time see sees a great event, a portion of her life force is eaten away.  She has never lived beyond sixteen years of age.  This Yeul is now fifteen.  She most likely doesn’t have much longer to live, and most likely she knows exactly how and when she will die.  When she does, another girl with the same appearance and the same powers and memories will be born, and she will be named Yeul.  A reincarnation.  They are all the same, and they are all unique.”

 

“Dies at sixteen?”

 

“At most.”

 

“That’s horrible.”

 

“It is my fate. Fate cannot be outrun, only accepted,” Yeul said.  “If I were to attempt measures to save myself, the timeline would be altered.  A paradox would be created.  Thousands would suffer.  The consequences would be terrible.”

 

“This Etro must be a real bitch,” Loghain said.

 

“The goddess is cruel only to be kind,” Yeul said. “The gods Pulse and Lindzei fought over our world and sought to make slaves of mankind.  Etro gave the first Yeul the gift of her Eyes in order to give mankind a way to help save themselves from this godly war.  But it is a terrible power that cannot be used carelessly.  It destroys more easily than it saves.  Each prophecy a Yeul makes is as likely to end in chaos and destruction as the salvation she hopes for.”

 

“So the future is set in stone. Nothing anyone can do really matters,” Loghain said.

 

Yeul shook her head. “When I or any other Yeul has a vision, what I see _will_ come to pass.  But we are only shown part of the picture at a time.  The meaning of what we are seeing is not always clear, and the way to the future we see is never set.  That is up to the people involved.  I may see a vision of what looks very much like you standing over Stephen, with your sword drawn, and he lying dead on the ground, but when the moment comes, you will discover that you reach down a hand to help him to his feet.  My visions should never be taken at face value.  Hope for the future should never be lost.”

 

“So you’ve _had_ that vision?” Loghain asked warily.

 

She smiled. “Merely an example.  I have not seen such a thing, but it is similar to things other Yeuls have seen of other people in the past.”

 

“Will you ever be free of your burden?” Loghain asked.

 

“When the bells of the goddess toll, and time ends for all, then perhaps I shall know freedom from this eternity of servitude.”

 

He fell to his knees before her. “Is there any way I can help you?  This burden is too much for a child.”

 

“Be easy in your heart. When you reclaimed Ferelden for her own, you saved many lives and made many people happy.  When you are a Sorcerer Supreme, I foresee that you will stop many calamities and save many more lives.  We all work together individually… to build a brighter future for the whole.”  She smiled beautifully at him.  “I am at peace with my burden.  Do not be disquiet with yours.”

 

The tall man, never introduced, stepped forward. “Yeul, we must return,” he said.

 

She nodded. “Of course, Caius.  Goodbye, Stephen.  Farewell, Loghain.  We will never see each other again, but if you have need of aid, my descendents  will help you in any way they can.”

 

“I still wish I could do something to shoulder this burden for you. It’s too much for a child,” Loghain said.

 

She smiled again, her green eyes shining. “All of us must shoulder our own burden, and yours is truly no less than my own.  The gods do not give us more load than we can bear.”

 

“You die before you ever learn what it is to be a woman. You don’t think that’s rather more load than you can bear?”

 

“Death is not the end. And sometimes… one must go through hell… in order to reach Heaven.”  She raised her veil over her head and kissed his brow, then backed away to stand beside her silent guardian, who raised a hand and caused a portal that they both stepped through.  Loghain remained on his knees for a moment longer, and then pushed himself to his feet with minimal difficulty.  He held his head high and kept his eyes straight forward, gaze intense.

 

“You’ve grown from that encounter,” Strange said. “I can see it.  I can sense it in your aura.  Your resolve has grown.  That will help you a great deal.”

 

“If that poor child can handle her responsibility, I have no choice but to accept mine,” Loghain said. “Once and forever.”

 

Strange clapped him on the back. “Very good.  I’m proud of you.  Your determination helps your mana pool grow.  Why, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the next thing to happen were --”

 

A ball of crackling light appeared in the room before them, and it exploded and resolved into a massive bounding creature twenty feet long and ten feet tall, with three pairs of legs and a pair of long tentacles growing out of its back. It was covered in black fur, surrounded by a strange gleaming light that made it hard to place in space, and looked rather feline despite its oddness.  Loghain immediately drew his sword upon its appearance.  Strange merely finished his sentence.

 

“--the appearance of your familiar.”

 

“What is that thing?” Loghain asked, still standing defensively with his sword drawn.

 

“I’m a Displacer Beast Pack Lord, and I’m here for you, Loghain Mac Tir,” the creature said.

 

“If you’re coming, bring it on, beast,” Loghain said.

 

“Easy, there, dipshit,” the beast said. “I’m not here to kill you.  I’m your familiar.  I’m here to help.”

 

“I knew it would be something… intense,” Strange said. “Displacer Beasts usually aren’t the… _sweetest-natured_ of creatures.”

 

“I’m not the nicest turd in the shithouse, perhaps, but I’m not _quite_ like my brethren,” the beast said.  “I don’t do evil for the sake of it.  That’s why I travel alone.”

 

Loghain sheathed his sword. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I hope you’re self-cleaning.  I have enough trouble now with cleaning up a fake grass mat after a small mabari puppy that’s going to grow into two hundred and twenty pound dog.  I shudder to imagine the mess you leave behind.”

 

“Don’t worry,” the creature said, with a distinct verbal sneer. “I have all the magical powers you have, and maybe more.  I’ll keep my messes clean just as you clean up after yourself.  But I want to know about this ‘puppy.’  Mabari.  Is that anything like a Blink Dog?”

 

“I don’t know what a Blink Dog is. Mabari are dogs from my world, not whatever world it is that you come from.”

 

“Well. I’ll reserve judgment,” the creature said.  “As long as it’s not a Blink Dog.”

 

“Congratulations, Mister Mac Tir. Or should I say, ‘Master’ Mac Tir?  At this point, you have reached that stage,” Strange said.

 

“You’re kidding. I don’t know jack about magic yet,” Loghain said.

 

“You know all you need know to qualify as a Master and to begin teaching your own students, and that time has come.”

 

“How can I teach what I don’t yet know?” Loghain said plaintively.

 

“You have much to teach, and you will be a good teacher. And you will remain at your studies all the while you are teaching, so that you will have more to teach as your students improve.”

 

“You send all your students away so I won’t be distracted at my studies… then you stick me with students of my own… and think I won’t be distracted?” Loghain said.

 

“You’ll be distracted, but you can handle it now. I have faith in you.  You can concentrate, and if you can concentrate like a proper Master, you can study and teach at the same time.”

 

“How is that possible?”

 

“With your Astral form. As long as you can keep your concentration, doing two things at once is easy for the mind. _Your_ mind may be able to concentrate on more than two things at once.”

 

“Transcendental meditation. Astral projection.  I’ve studied that, but I’ve never done it.”

 

“You’d better learn quickly. I have scouted two suitable candidates as students for you from Ferelden, for your own comfort.  Good news: one of them is a mage, and should be rather easy to bring to an acceptance of sorcery.”

 

“That is good news. Now what’s the bad news?” Loghain said, always ready for the bad news.

 

“The other is a templar.”

 

“Ah. This is more of another test for me than anything else, isn’t it?  See if this new resolve of mine sticks.”

 

“Everything we do on a daily basis is a test, my friend,” Strange said. “All we can do is try our best.”

 

“Well. I will be the best that I can be.  If it is my lot to be Sorcerer Supreme, I will bear that burden to the best of my ability for as long as it is mine to bear, no matter what becomes of it.”


	11. Recruits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loghain goes student-hunting

Loghain dressed himself in the new clothes that the Doctor had provided for him. Until now he had made do with what he’d had all along, the ancient leather armor and plain wool blouses and tanned leather trousers he’d worn up in the mountains, but the Doctor wanted him to impress his new students when he went to recruit them.  The new clothes were similar to what Wong and Strange wore, fine fabric of a type Loghain was unfamiliar with, in a style somewhere halfway between what he knew from his own world and the unusual tunics of this world that his teachers wore.  The color was black.  They were patterned with a red trident, like the pattern done in lighter blue on Strange’s tunic.

 

He checked to make certain he was perfectly shaven and that his hair was properly in place. It _was_ growing darker, he could see that now.  It was still, however, far more salt than pepper.  Maybe it would help him to look sage.

 

He didn’t know whether to try the mage or the templar first. On the one hand, it would surely be easier to convince the mage that sorcery was real, and having a recruit at his side might give him some credibility with the templar.  But having a _mage_ at his side might tip the templar over the edge so that he wouldn’t even listen to the pitch.  How he was going to _pitch_ this wildness to a templar in the first place was a very good question he had yet to answer.

 

On the other hand, the mage probably wouldn’t listen to him at all from the start. She wasn’t really Ferelden, she was Dalish _living_ in Ferelden, and that was going to complicate things with or without the templar.  How was he supposed to convince a wild elf to leave her people and her clan to come away with a human?  Just recruiting these two was a hell of a test.

 

Not to mention, Strange was going along with him, nor Wong. He was supposedly doing this entirely on his own, even casting the spells necessary to bring these two people to stand outside of time with him.  And put them back _inside_ of frozen time, if his recruitment was unsuccessful, apparently.  He hadn’t the opportunity to _practice_ this spell, but he knew it now.  To aid him with it, Strange had loaned him his amulet, the so-called Eye of Agamatto, which would grant him sufficient power to manipulate time.  He pulled it on over his head and straightened his hair out again.  A final check that all was well, a deep breath, and he squared his shoulders.

 

There was no sense in fretting over which to recruit first and how to go about it. On the spot he chose to open up a portal to the Grand Cathedral in Denerim, where the templar was stationed.  Since they stopped fighting the mages (at least full-time) and went back to the Chantry, that was where Ferelden’s templars were to be found in bulk.

 

He located the barracks area and found several dark-haired templars inside, but only one sufficiently scruffy enough to suit the image Strange had shown him. Damien Chasteyn didn’t take much pride of appearance for a man in uniform.

 

Loghain closed his eyes and forked his fingers in front of the Eye on his chest. It opened and a glyph formed.  He opened his eyes again as Chasteyn was pulled out of frozen time.  The man continued about his interrupted business of pulling off his boots, but then noticed the unusual stasis of his templar buddies and the oddly-dressed stranger in their midst.

 

“What in the Void is going on?” Chasteyn said. “Who are you, old man?”

 

Loghain couldn’t help himself. _This_ was what he was supposed to work with?  He had hoped, when he heard the man was a templar, that he had a bit of discipline already bred in.  It didn’t look much that way to him right now.

 

“On your feet, soldier!” he said. The tone of command in his voice came from long years of ordering men such as this around.  The young templar shot to his feet and saluted by instinct at the sheer sound.  Embarrassed, the man shuffled in place and looked away.

 

“I don’t know you and you don’t order me around, Grey Hair,” he said, sulking.

 

Loghain paced in front of him, hands behind his back. “So this is what I came all this way for, eh?  This is Damien Chasteyn. _Damien Chasteyn._ Pheh.  Sounds like a name out of one of those preposterous Orlesian romances my daughter used to read.”

 

“How do you know my name?” Chasteyn asked.

 

“I talk, you listen. Got it?  Good.  My name is Loghain Mac Tir.  I’m here to recruit you, though I’m wondering just exactly why.”

 

The young man’s eyes popped and his jaw dropped. _“Loghain Mac Tir?”_ He collected himself.  “Loghain Mac Tir.  The _Traitor._ Shouldn’t you be dead by now, old man?”

 

“Many men have said that to me, at many times over the course of most of my life. I dare say they’ll say it a few more times before they’re finally right.”

 

“What are you doing here? And… what did you do to my mates?”

 

“Time has ceased. It doesn’t hurt them.  You were frozen as well, until I pulled you out of time.  It’s… complicated.  Time doesn’t exist everywhere like you’d think it does.”

 

“Time has stopped… but you pulled me out of time. What kind of bullshit are you trying to feed me?  What was in those _cookies_ Jansen’s mother made for him?”

 

“Silence. Maker, you’re sloppy.”  Loghain drew the young man’s weapon and ran his hand down the dull blade.  “This must be the most poorly-maintained weapon of any so-called ‘professional’ I have ever seen.  Your hair’s a mess and you clearly haven’t shaved for several days.  Do the templars really tolerate such lack of discipline?  I’d have thought they’d be more strict with their _soldiers of Andraste.”_

 

The young man grabbed for his sword but Loghain did not release it. Chasteyn tried to wrest it from his grip but could not manage it, even with both hands.  All those long days in training with Wong seemed to have paid off, after all.  He certainly wasn’t on Wong’s level, but if Strange was telling the truth he’d returned to the strength of his sixties, and he’d been a warrior men still feared in his sixties.  When Chasteyn stopped struggling he gave the young man back his sword and stared him down with his cold grey-blue eyes.

 

“As I said, I’m here to recruit you, for a very important position. Evil things threaten this world every day, knowledge that must be kept from the world’s populace for the sake of daily harmony.  The governments and armies of the world cannot stop these creatures, these beings.  The Chantry has no power over them.  The only ones who can save our world are sorcerers, people who learn to use the magic of the earth and air and their own very being to become almost godlike.  It’s a difficult position, a difficult life, one I would not offer to just anyone.  So again I ask myself why I am offering it to _you,_ of all people, but this is what I am doing.”

 

The young man sat back down on his footlocker at the end of his bunk, hard, like he’d been punched in the gut. He looked up at Loghain uncomprehendingly.  “Sorcery? _Magic?_ You think I’m a _mage?_ I’m a _templar,_ for the Maker’s sake!”

 

“I know you’re not a mage. I’m not a mage either, for what it’s worth.  But sorcery is real, and anyone can do it if they study hard enough.  It takes someone special to take it to the level we need, however.  My Master suggested that _you_ were just that kind of person.  He’s made errors in judgment in the past, but I’ve always known him to be careful in his researches.  It leads me to believe there may be _something_ inside you that’s a bit more dedicated than the face you’re showing me as a templar.”

 

Chasteyn shook his head. “All right, if you’re a sorcerer, prove it.  Show me something really good that’ll let me know this isn’t all a bunch of blather.  As they say, ‘Knock my socks off.’”

 

Loghain gestured to the frozen templars. “Your statuary friends don’t prove anything to you?” he said.

 

“Pish. A mage could do that with a Mass Paralysis spell.  I want to see something… _unusual._ Something no mere mage could do.”

 

“All right. Let’s begin simply, shall we?  If you require more proof from there, I can give you what you desire.”  And Loghain raised his palm and conjured Pepper from the sanctum to his hand.  The little dragon screeched at having been summarily interrupted from his nap.  “This is Pepper.  My… _dragon_ companion.  He’s a little miffed with me right now.  Apparently he was asleep when I summoned him.”

 

Chasteyn gulped, but tossed his head. “Parlor tricks,” he said.  “I want to see something _big.”_

 

“If big is what you want,” Loghain said, and opened a portal to the sanctum. His familiar bounded through, all twenty twisted feline feet of him.  Chasteyn jumped up and fell over backwards trying to scramble away.  “This is Nermal,” Loghain said.  “He is my familiar -- a magical beast that connects with a sorcerer and shares and boosts magical power.  If you think his name sounds a bit silly, it’s not my fault, I didn’t give it to him.  My Master named him.  He found the name amusing.  I don’t understand the reference.”

 

“What an atrocious monstrosity!” Chasteyn said.

 

“You’re no great prize yourself, Cupcake,” Nermal said, and licked a paw. Pepper trilled from where he perched on Loghain’s shoulder, and Nermal chuckled. _“Oo, burn.”_

 

“What did he say?” Chasteyn said, looking from the displacer beast to the dragon and back again.

 

 _“Pepper,”_ Loghain said.  “Now, you two, play nice.  I hate to say it, but that’s _probably_ why the young man grows the scruff.”

 

“What? _What?”_

 

Loghain waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing, nothing at all.  Just a careless remark about an ass cheek chin.  It wasn’t really _that_ good of an insult.  But you know, leaving it stubbly just makes it look like a _hairy_ ass.  Either shave it clean or grow a proper beard to hide it altogether.”

 

Pepper and Nermal both went into their own version of convulsions of mirth. Loghain remained calm and silent, not even smiling.  “Are you convinced, yet, or must I play Court Magician to you further?”

 

Chasteyn dropped his face into his hands. “Somebody put something into those cookies.  Miller.  I know it was that arse.  I’ll kill him for this.  I swear it.”

 

“Aw, wake up, Shitheels,” Nermal growled. “How ’bout I bite you.  Will that make it real to you?”

 

“I assure you that you’re not hallucinating anything, Ser Chasteyn,” Loghain said. “If you do not believe me, Nermal rather likes his ears scratched.”

 

“Not by _this_ dickweed,” Nermal said.  He put down his paw and favored the young templar with a hiss.

 

“What would scratching your beast’s ears prove?” Chasteyn said, still with his face buried in his hands.

 

“That he’s real. And since he is at _least_ as intelligent as you are, I think you should refer to him with due respect by name and not as ‘beast.’”

 

“Look, all this ‘conjuring monsters’ business is nifty, but if you really want me to come along with you… conjure me… a nice, cold, frothy brew. _Then_ I’ll come along,” Chasteyn said.

 

Loghain stood with his arms crossed across his chest, expression cold and impassive, mouth downturned, clearly unamused. “I begin to think more and more that my Master must be in error,” he said.

 

“Well, what I’m trying to say is, conjuring these creatures is creepy and… makes me feel like I’m in a Fade dream. Do something… that will make me believe in this stuff.  That’ll make me _join_ you.”

 

Loghain smiled. “All right.  Stand up.”

 

The young man stood up. Nermal moved aside.  Pepper flew away.  Loghain stood still for a moment, and then suddenly his entire body flew into the air in a roundhouse kick that landed across Chasteyn’s stubbly chin and knocked the young man flying.  Unconscious for a time, when the young man came to, he rubbed his jaw and stared unbelievingly.

 

“How in the Void did you do that?” he asked. “What kind of magic lifts a man into the air like that?”

 

“No magic. A martial art that I am learning from another Master.  Sorcerers must also learn to school their bodies as well as their minds.”

 

“So they’re teaching you to… fight? Like _that?_ That I’ve _got_ to learn.”

 

“Then come with me.”

 

The young man stepped forward. “Where _exactly_ is it we’re going?” he asked.

 

“At the moment? After my next recruit. After that?  Out of this dimension to my Master’s sanctum.”

 

“Ah. Out of the dimension.  I… won’t ask exactly what that means.”

 

“You’ll find out later. For now, it doesn’t matter as much.”

 

“How far do we have to travel?”

 

“Just step through here,” Loghain said, and opened a portal.

 

Chasteyn stepped close to the portal and looked through it to the woodland scene beyond. He looked at Loghain uncertainly.  “Through there?”

 

“Right through there.”

 

“Where is that, out there?”

 

“Southern Ferelden. The forests near Redcliffe.”

 

“Just one step, and we travel from the _interior_ of the Grand Cathedral of Denerim to the _exterior_ of the forests of Redcliffe?”

 

“That’s the idea.”

 

Chasteyn was clearly afraid to take that first step, so Loghain took his arm and walked through with him. The portal closed behind them and Chasteyn looked around them at the unfamiliar scenery of woodlands wildlands and frozen elves in various positions of going about their business among the landships and campfires.

 

“These are Dalish,” Chasteyn said. “What are we doing _here?”_

 

“I’ll find my next recruit among them. If you have any prejudices, you can leave them behind.  I don’t need them in a recruit.  If you find that impossible, I’ll put you back in time and freeze you like these elves, and when time starts flowing again you can explain to them just how it is you came to be here.  If they’re willing to listen.”

 

“Ookay. Yeah, I’ll, ah… put any and all prejudices aside.  Not that I have any, of course.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Loghain searched through the elves until he found his quarry, a young woman in traditional Dalish robes of ornate styling. She had a bright, sunny smile, sharp, intelligent brown eyes, and long blonde hair plaited in Orlesian style all the way down to her ankles.  Loghain made the glyph before the Eye and pulled her out of time.

 

She staggered, pulled off balance. Like Chasteyn, she looked around at the strangeness all around her, her frozen friends and the strangers who had suddenly appeared in her midst.  She leveled her staff at them.  “I don’t know where you came from, Shemlen, but I will make you pay for what you’ve done to my people.”

 

“Peace. We haven’t done anything to your people.  And they aren’t hurt.  Time has stopped.  When it starts again, they won’t be aware that anything has happened to them,” Loghain said, with a hand raised palm out,

 

She lowered her staff fractionally, but only fractionally. “There is no spell that could do such a thing.”

 

“Not in your magic, no. Not in mine, either.  My Master, however, has magic far beyond either of us.  This was his doing.  He stopped time wherever time exists, so that I have time to learn what I must learn.  I’m only partway along, but I’m at the point where I must start teaching others what I have learned thus far.  This young man is the first of my new recruits.  I’ve come here to make you the other.”

 

She put down her staff. “Recruit?  Magic?  Teaching?  I-I… I don’t understand.  I was taught by our Keeper.  I am a fully-taught mage of our people.”

 

“Yes, but you are not a Sorcerer. I am offering you entry into a world of an entirely different sort of magic, that comes from yourself and from the world around you, not from some accidental connection to the Fade.  My Masters and I can open your eyes to worlds you never dreamed existed, wonders you never knew yourself capable of.  All you have to do is come with me.”

 

“Come with you. Leave my people, you mean.  Leave my clan.”

 

Loghain nodded.

 

“I don’t… I don’t think I could ever do that. How do you even know about me?”

 

“My Master. He told me about your aptitude, showed me what you looked like, and told me where to find you, although not much else about you, Gilariel Almadeil.”

 

“Well, you know my name at least. What is this… _creature_ that is with you?”

 

“My familiar. If you were to become a sorcerer you may well draw one of your own, though most probably of an entirely different species.  Say hello, Nermal.”

 

“Howdy, Ma’am,” Nermal said, with a nod of the head.

 

“It speaks,” Gilariel said, eyes wide.

 

“Yes, _he_ does.  So too does Pepper, here on my shoulder, though not verbally but mind-to-mind.  He has to form a connection first, though.”

 

“A dragon. You talk to dragons.”  This clearly excited her.  “I always wondered whether it might be possible.”

 

“Pepper is not from this world, but many dragon species throughout many worlds are highly intelligent. Many can speak in the tongues of many creatures, including humans and elves.”

 

“And this… and other things like it… is what I would learn… if I went with you.”

 

“Many other things. I was a warrior, never thought of talking to dragons, never spent time imaging wonders, dreaming of what was out there beyond our world.  Now I begin to glimpse, and I am boggled.  Perhaps you would come to an acceptance more readily.  Acceptance makes it far easier to gain power.  You may surpass me, become _my_ teacher.”

 

She stepped toward him. “What would I do with this power?  What is it’s use?”

 

“Keeping this world from destruction.”

 

“Who is trying to destroy it?”

 

“Gods. Demons.  Creatures beyond belief.  Each and every day, they tear at the fabric of our dimension.  Beings that your people worshipped once kept them at bay, as did the threat of mages like yourself, but now we need intervention from a collective of highly trained sorcerers working from the shadows.  No one must know about us, for the sake of harmony.”

 

“So if I go with you… it’s forever. I can never see my clan again.”

 

“No.”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait --” Chasteyn said. “You never told me this part.  So, what will the boys back home think when they wake up and find me gone?  I thought you’d slip ‘em some kind of excuse until I could come back and see ‘em.”

 

Loghain turned to look full at him. “They will only see a bunk that they believe has always been empty.  Your family and close friends from your home will remember you, but not where you’ve gone.  To them, you are a templar who doesn’t write home.  Not so far from the truth, is it, Ser Chasteyn?”

 

Giladriel looked at Chasteyn. “You’re a templar,” she said.

 

“Yes, I am,” he said.

 

“I’ve never met a templar before. You don’t mind that I’m a mage?  And a Dalish?”

 

“If you don’t mind that I’m a templar and a human, I guess.”

 

_Chasteyn, don’t even consider it. I don’t believe the young lady would appreciate your advances._

_What--? Get out of my head, Mac Tir!_ Chasteyn thought.

 

_I’m not in your head. You’re on the verge of mine.  You’re broadcasting quite loudly.  And you’re not at all hard to read, Lover-boy._

_Is Fraternization forbidden?_

_I don’t believe so. But it is… ill-advised.  Particularly between former templars and Dalish elves.  Besides, you won’t have time or energy for such things._

“The secrets and wonders of the universe… in exchange for never seeing my clan again,” Gilariel said. She turned and looked around at the elves frozen in time.  “I can’t even say goodbye to them one last time?”

 

“I’m afraid not. Quite apart from the fact that they can never know where it is you have gone, I do not possess the power to unfreeze time or pull them out of time on a mass scale,” Loghain said.

 

“So they’ll just think I’ve… disappeared.”

 

“They will have a memory that you went into the woods alone. They will believe that you never came back.”

 

She sniffled and wiped away tears. “I do not want to leave my people,” she said.

 

“I certainly understand that. The decision is yours.  If you do not wish to come, I will put you back in time and you will be again as the rest of these people are.  When time flows once more, this will simply be a strange memory you probably won’t wish to talk about with your friends, and you will never see or hear from us again,” Loghain said.

 

“You’re not taking as tough a line with her as you did with me, I notice,” Chasteyn said.

 

“I don’t believe I need to,” Loghain said over his shoulder.

 

She gazed upon her people a moment longer, the friends and the only family she had ever known, and whispered words in the elven tongue to wish them well with safe travels and the protection of the gods. Then she turned back to Loghain and stood up straight and proud.  “I… I cannot turn down such an offer.  Take me with you.  Teach me your powers.”

 

 _“She_ trusts easy,” Chasteyn said.

 

 _“She_ knows magic, Pinhead,” Nermal said.

 

Loghain opened a portal to the sanctum. “Come right this way,” he said, and gestured for the both of his recruits to precede him through.  Chasteyn had no problem taking that step this time, and made himself look brave in front of the pretty elven lady.  Gilariel took one last look over her shoulder at the Dalish camp before sighing and passing through.  Nermal bounded after, and Loghain closed the portal after passing through himself.


	12. Piercing

Loghain’s next days were quite full.  He had to swiftly learn how to maintain a strong astral projection in one or two locations doing different things while his physical body did something entirely different elsewhere.  That was hardly easy, even for strong Masters, and Loghain had only been taught to maintain a functional astral projection through concentrated meditation.  But all it really required was considerable concentrated willpower.

 

He intended to keep his new students apart as much as possible.  He would give them physical training together, since that required the use of his physical body, but he would give them magical training in separate rooms.  He had been given the advantage of no such distractions as fellow students, he would give them that advantage as well.  And there was something else driving this decision as well.

 

Every time that Chasteyn looked at Gilariel, Loghain saw something in the young man’s eyes that he did not like to see.  It was nothing you would not expect to see in the eye of most young men when they gazed upon a pretty young lady, but there was something about the former templar Loghain did not trust.  Of course, the same could be said of everyone that he knew.

 

Their first lesson in the arena was his first chance to observe them together.  As he’d rather expected, Chasteyn paid more attention to the woman than his teacher, and Gilariel ignored the boy pointedly.  Loghain set himself to do the same for the first while.  He turned to the woman.  One hand behind his back, he gestured to her.

 

“You first, my dear.  Attack me, in any way that you can,” he said.

 

“I do not wish to _hurt_ you,” she said.

 

“If you do, it will only go to show that you require teaching at a higher level than I can give you,” he said.  “My Master will take care of any wounds you give me.”

 

“Well… very well.  If you say so.”  She raised her staff and attempted to cast a spell.  Nothing happened.  Nonplussed, she looked at her hands.  “I don’t understand.  This has never happened before.  Perhaps I require a lyrium potion?”

 

“It wouldn’t do you any good, my dear,” Loghain said.  “You have no connection to the Fade in this dimension.  Even if I had any lyrium to give you, it too draws its power from its strong connection to the Fade.  It would be powerless here.  There will be no lyrium here for either of you.  I know that may be troublesome.”

 

“Troublesome?  It may _kill_ me!” Chasteyn said.  “I can’t go without lyrium!”

 

“You will simply have to find the strength,” Loghain said.  “I assure you it is possible.  Others have done it.  So can you.  And… so can you, my dear,” he said, turning to Gilariel.  “I have never heard one word spoken about the notion that mages, too, might be addicted to lyrium, but it seems likely to me.  You take the stuff at least as often as templars do.”

 

“I… I’ve never thought about it.  I have always been provided with lyrium whenever I required it, whenever I asked for it.  I have never felt any particular _urge_ to take it before, but I have never been forced to go without it, either,” Gilariel said.

 

“It may be difficult, but the pain will pass in time.  Now, please my dear.  Any way that you _can_ … please attack me.”

 

“This is hardly fair,” she said.  “You are a trained warrior, are you not?  I am very much not.”

 

“I will take it easy on you for that very reason, my dear, I promise you.  Just attack me.”

 

With some uncertainty, she launched a physical attack with her staff.  He blocked it with one arm and reached out and put his other hand on her shoulder at the place where it joined to her neck.  He applied fairly gentle pressure there, and she dropped to the floor, unconscious.

 

“It is not always necessary to be brutal,” he said, for Chasteyn’s sake.  “If your opponent is of considerably lesser skill, there are many ways to take them out of the fight without harming them permanently.”

 

“Is that the way you usually take care of your opponents, Mac Tir?” Chasteyn said.

 

“It’s usually not that easy to gauge an opponent’s skills.  I’m also not typically that invested in keeping my opponent alive.”

 

“You gonna be that soft on me?” Chasteyn asked.

 

“You have been trained to fight.  You have supposedly been turned into one of the greatest soldiers in Thedas.”

 

“And you’ve been taught how to fly.”

 

“I have been taught how to levitate.  It is a difficult procedure that requires intense concentration, but fortunately I don’t believe I shall require levitation to take _you_ on.  Attack me.”

 

“Attack you.  So you can kick me upside the jaw again?  No thank you.”

 

“You wanted to learn this way of fighting.  You should be glad you’re learning it from me.  _My_ Master would probably kill you.  I’m surprised he hasn’t killed me, yet.  He says I’m coming along well, but it’s hard to tell in comparison to him.  The fact that I can teach it now to you is the only way I have of knowing that I’ve made progress at all.  Attack me.”

 

“Nuh uh.  Letting you kick me in the face is not the way I’m going to learn how to do this myself.”

 

“How did you learn to fight in the first place?” Loghain asked.

 

“Not by being overwhelmed,” Chasteyn said.

 

“You won’t be.  I’m not that good.”

 

“You were that good before you _learned_ this new way of fighting, Mac Tir.”

 

“Once, perhaps.  But I’m eighty-seven years old, now.  Are you going to tell me you’re afraid of an eighty-seven year old man?”

 

“You’ve held up well, old man.”

 

“Not really.  I’ve experienced something of a resurgence of youth in recent days.  My Master says I have regained the strength I had in my sixties.”

 

“You were a damned scary man in your sixties, apparently.”

 

“I was.  You should have seen me in my prime.”

 

“I’m just as glad that I didn’t.  All right, I’ll play it your way.  I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”  Chasteyn drew his sword and shield.  He circled Loghain, looking for an opening, but Loghain didn’t even seem to be defending himself, keeping his hands laced behind his back.  Chasteyn was wary, but his teacher did nothing, put up no guard.  With nothing left to do, Chasteyn attacked at last, but faster than lightning Loghain knocked his sword out of his hands with his forearm and punched him in the face with his other fist.  Chasteyn crumbled like a broken statue.  Both students now lay at Loghain’s feet, unconscious.

 

He left Chasteyn where he lay but opened up a portal to Gilariel’s room and carried her there.  He returned to his own rooms and his own studies.  He worked on conquering the ability to cast his astral projection powerfully enough that both it and his own physical body could do separate things, and to cast more than one at a time.  It wasn’t easy and he had little time in which to learn it.  He was interrupted, however, by a visit from the Doctor.

 

“You are coming along very well,” he said.  “Very well indeed.  You will do well with your students.  Their first lessons have gone well, though I see you purposely got them out from underfoot so that you could have your own private time.  I wonder what you think of them thus far?”

 

“The elf is ready and raring to learn the mystical stuff, she’ll do well once she breaks herself of the idea that it should come as naturally to her as the magic she’s known all her life.  The physical side of things won’t be so easy for her, but she’s got potential, like a very green army recruit.  Chasteyn… well, I’m not sure he’s got the discipline and I _know_ he’s not buying into it right now, like I didn’t buy into it for a long time.  It’s going to be hard to get through to him.  I’ll do it, though, if I have to crack his skull open.”

 

“I truly think you shall, and I don’t believe any skull cracking will be necessary.  I wonder now if you wouldn’t like the challenge of choosing your _own_ student?”

 

“I thought two at once was as much as you wanted for me,” Loghain said.

 

“What’s just one more?” the Doctor said, smiling.

 

“A pain in the ass-tral projection,” Loghain said, scowling.  “How would I even locate a potential student?”

 

“I can show you.  Follow me.”

 

Strange took him to a room of the mansion in which there was a large bronze globe.  It was set to resemble Strange’s world, but with a wave of his hands, it reset itself to a depiction of Thedas.  Bright glowing lights millions strong, represented all of the people of that world.  Doctor Strange waved a hand at it.  “These are all the people of your world.  One of them has the best skills to be a sorcerer.  Focus on them and find him -- or her, as the case may be.  Simple as pie.”

 

“I’m not much of a baker,” Loghain said warily.

 

“It’s all right, you’ll do just fine.  Just focus.”

 

“Have you asked yourself whether I really _want_ another student?” Loghain said.

 

“One more will make it even.”

 

“Three students makes it even?”

 

“You’re a student, too.  Besides, there’s another one out there, from another nation, that I thought had great potential, but I let be because I thought you wouldn’t get along together.  I want to see if you happen to choose them for yourself.”

 

“If you let somebody go because you thought I’d get along with them worse than this Chasteyn fellow, then they must be _really_ incompatible,” Loghain said.  “Still, I shouldn’t like to think I’d make that a judgment against them when I’m looking to teach someone.”

 

“It can be important.  Sometimes you just can’t teach someone you can’t appeal to.”

 

“Well, I can always try.  What happens if I were to fail?”

 

“Another sorcerer would try to pick up where you leave off.  Harder with you, because you’re the only one at teaching level in your world at this point, but I could always help out if necessary for now.”

 

“What if the student fails for his own reasons?”

 

“Then he goes back to his own life.  Or, if they try to use their newfound powers for evil or selfish purposes, they become our enemies.  We may have to fight them.  Kill them, even.”

 

“So… no pressure.  Get it right the first time or everything goes to shit.  What if they want to take what they learn and use it to help people, just not in the way we do it?”

 

“It can be allowed, but the Sorcerer Supreme needs all the help he or she can get.”

 

“So I’ve gotta try and convince them to stick with me.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Again, no pressure.  All right, let’s find this fellow.”  Loghain stepped up to the globe and raised his hands.  He closed his eyes and concentrated.  After a few moments, he opened his eyes again.  One bright light remained on the globe, in the vicinity of the Rivaini city of Llomeryn.  He focused on that light specifically, and the globe turned into an image of a young elven man with a tattooed face and shining green eyes.  His face glittered with gold and gems all over his ears, his eyebrows, his cheeks, his lips, and his nose.  Loghain wrinkled his nose at the sight.

 

“What is that all over his face?”

 

“Piercings, I should think,” Strange said.

 

“Did he do that to _himself?”_ Loghain said.

 

“Well, given the decorative and rather _expensive_ look of those piercings he has, I should rather assume so,” Strange said.  “Perhaps it has some religious significance to him.  Or perhaps he merely likes the look.”

 

“It’s got to hurt, doesn’t it?  What keeps them from getting infected?”

 

“Keeping clean is a good help.”

 

“Well, anyway, we’ve got this guy’s look and his location, how do I find out his name?” Loghain said.

 

“The linking of minds.  A difficulty for you, I know, but it wouldn’t be necessary for you to give anything of yourself away to him.”

 

“He’s in stopped time.  Doesn’t that mean his mind is stopped?” Loghain said.

 

“It is, but you can still reach it, or any other mind.  The astral self exists upon its own unique plane, affected by time but standing outside it.  Right now, his mind _thinks_ it is stopped, because it does not know that it can continue without time.”

 

“So… all the minds in Thedas… in all the worlds with time… are stopped because they think they have to be?”

 

“Most of them.  Some people have such active minds, either by simple nature or conditioning or through some mental disorder, that their minds refuse to cease functioning.  This creates an interesting condition for them.  Something like a dreamscape.  They are generally aware that they are in a frozen state, but they think they are dreaming.”

 

“All right, then.  I have to… reach out to him, then.  Will he be aware of it?”

 

“If you’re clumsy, perhaps.  Most likely not.  Not in his current condition, unless he is one of those people who is still mentally aware.”

 

“How often do you find that?” Loghain asked.

 

“Rather frequently in my world,” Strange said, “but then we have a much higher world human population than Thedas.  You yourself are like that, but I haven’t seen that it is nearly so commonplace in your world.  I haven’t run the numbers, but I would expect that the ratio is probably about the same.  At least amongst humans.  Elves and dwarves are not much different, but in other worlds they don’t tend to the same mental disorders that humans do, though they have their own.”

 

“So I have a disorder?”

 

“I don’t know.  A man with an intellect like your own would be prone to simply being highly active of mind, but then, there is a thin line between genius and insanity.  It does not matter.  If you are mad, it is a helpful sort of madness.  The sort I require for the position of Sorcerer Supreme.”

 

Loghain grunted.  “Nice to know.  Well, let’s get this over with.”

 

He was only somewhat aware of the mechanics of the process of reaching out to touch minds with someone long distance, but he focused on the location and the image of the man and made the attempt for the first time.  “All right, I think I’ve got him.  His name is… _Cal?_ Cal Morston.  Not the sort of name I would have expected for a Rivaini elf with his face all done up in ink and gemstones.”

 

“It’s a fairly common name in many human dimensions.”

 

“He’s not _human.”_

 

“He may have been raised amongst humans.  Morston is not an elven name, either.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“Well, you should take the Eye of Agamotto with you, and I would suggest taking your prior recruits as well.  They may be able to help you convince your new potential student.  Nermal, too, seems good at persuasive speech.”

 

“You don’t trust my skills?  Well, I wouldn’t either.  All right, I’ll take them.  Are they awake yet?”

 

“I’ll waken them.  You know, you needn’t have hit them so hard just to get a moment to study.”

 

“I didn’t hit the lady at all.”

 

“The principle remains the same.”

 

“Well, I’ve never been one for doing anything by halves.”

 

“That much is certain.  But they will need time to study just as much as you will.  And free time as well, time to socialize amongst themselves, time for their own pursuits.”

 

“You never gave _me_ that kind of time.”

 

“You don’t _have_ that kind of time.  Plus, I know your ethic doesn’t allow for that kind of thing.  You’ll have it after this business with the world-ending god is complete.”

 

“What strange danger will crop up after that?”

 

“No telling.  _Countless_ dangers.  But in the extended life of a sorcerer, one thing you can still count on is spare time.  You might wish to develop a few… hobbies.”

 

“Hobbies?  What are… oh, yeah.  Games and such.  You talked about this to me before.”

 

“Not just games.  Embroidery, perhaps.”  
  
“Celia tried to get me into embroidery,” Loghain said, giving Strange a wary look.

 

“I know.  You got more deeply involved in it than I’d wager you’d care to admit to me,” Strange said, smiling.

 

“That woman could get me involved in anything.  She thought it would calm me down.  It didn’t work very well.  Let’s hurry up and gnab this Cal Morston fellow.”

 

“Very well.  You go find Nermal, I shall gather your students.”


	13. Beatnik

The party stepped out of the portal and into the city of Llomeryn, a large city by Thedosian standards, the third largest in the world, and considered the filthiest and most dangerous, but also the most exotic.  They came out far from their destination.  Loghain wanted to see the place.  He didn’t think he’d be back any time soon, after all.  Certainly not when the streets were so safe.

 

The city seemed to be in a state of suspended pandemonium.  It was reminiscent in terms of population density to Greenwich Village, but probably not in terms of square mileage and definitely not in terms of architecture.  There were of course no automobiles, and people filled the streets, with horse and ass-drawn wagons the only means of conveyance.  Several chickens, escaped from the nearby open-air marketplace, were arrested in mid-flutter as they made their panicked way through the crowds of people on their way to freedom.  No one and nothing moved, no matter what stage of movement they had stopped in.  Loghain by this time was used to this sight, more or less.  His new students were more unnerved, particularly Gilariel, who was unused to seeing so many people in one place in any state of motion.

 

“I’ve never seen so many people in my life,” she said, with her knees growing weak.  Loghain reached out and put a steadying arm around her shoulders.

 

“It’s all right, my dear, they aren’t even aware you’re here.  Think nothing of them.  They’re just… color plates in a book you’re reading.  Very well-done color plates in a book.”

 

“I’ve never read a book with plates before,” she said.

 

“Well, you will.  In the meanwhile, use your imagination.”

 

“Is this city bigger than Val Royeaux?” Chasteyn asked.

 

“No, Val Royeaux is much bigger,” Loghain said.  “Minrathous is the biggest city in Thedas, and then Val Royeaux, and then Llomeryn.  Why do you ask?”

 

“Because I’ve _been_ to Val Royeaux,” Chasteyn said.  This place just seems… more _crowded.”_

 

“Well, population-wise it’s not as large,” Loghain said.  “However, there are certain parts of any city in Thedas that are less crowded than others.  What part of Val Royeaux did _you_ see?”

 

“Well, I don’t know the proper Orlesian names, but the, uh… the Summer Bazaar and the Grand Cathedral.  That’s pretty much it.”

 

“The uppity parts of the city, where the commoners can’t go.”

 

“Well… _what?”_

 

“You went to the highbrow side of Val Royeaux, Chasteyn.  No peasants and most assuredly no _beggars_ allowed.  Cuts down on the crowds considerably.”

 

“So this is what really big cities are like in the _common_ places then, I take it?”

 

“Don’t know.  Never been to a _really_ big city like this, at least not in our dimension.  Antiva City’s as big as I’ve been to, and that’s only a few thousand people more than Denerim.  And I didn’t spend much time exploring, either.  At least not with an eye to seeing the scenery.”

 

“Whatever saw you in Antiva City?” Chasteyn asked.  “Warden business?  I can’t see you going there as an agent of Ferelden.”

 

“I…”  Loghain faltered.  “I went around Thedas looking for sign of King Maric’s lost ship, the _Demelza_.  I never really found anything that brought me in off the high seas, but I explored many uncharted islands looking for anything at all in vain hope.  We put in to Antiva City to resupply our ship.  We ended up staying there for several weeks as the supplies we required were not readily available.  I wasn’t in the mood to sightsee, but I spent some time in the city.  It was good to get off the ship.”

 

“That was more explanation than I asked for.  And _far_ more than I expected from _you,_ Teacher.”

 

“That was a bad time in my life.  My best friend, my _King,_ was lost and presumed dead, and I couldn’t find any evidence to prove otherwise.  I don’t like talking about it, but sometimes it just spills out.”

 

Strange appeared before them in a sudden swirl of blue light.  “You’re not a very good liar, you know, my boy, and it isn’t a good policy to lie to your students.  You and I both know what really happened in Antiva City during those two years.”

 

 _“Two years?”_ Gilariel said.  “You spent two _years_ in Antiva City?  You told us several weeks.  Master, who is this man?”

 

“I spent six months in Antiva City,” Loghain said, after swallowing hard several times.  “I spent the rest of those two years… mourning and… wandering aimlessly.  Students, this is Doctor Stephen Strange.  _My_ Master.  Sorcerer Supreme of the dimension in which we live and learn when we are studying.  It is his home that plays host to us for the time being.”

 

“Just until your Master learns enough to be Sorcerer Supreme in his own right,” Strange said.

 

“So spill it, ‘Master.’  What’s the big lie?  What were you _really_ doing in Antiva City all those months you were _supposed_ to be looking for your dead King?” Chasteyn said.

 

“I was helping my _living_ King perform a quest he felt he needed to complete for an ancient hag by the name of Flemeth.  At the end of that quest, Maric… Maric died.”

 

“That’s not exactly true, either, my boy,” Strange said.

 

“Well, what else could I say?” Loghain snapped.  _“He walked into a **mirror** and vanished_.  He never came back!  It’s been thirty-eight years!  If he didn’t die instantly he’s dead by now!”

 

“You don’t know that.  You don’t even know where he ended up,” Strange said.

 

“Do _you?”_ Loghain said, with a definite note of hopefulness in his voice.

 

“I know something about it.  Not everything, unfortunately.  My business was to keep an eye on you, not your friend Maric.  But others may know more.”

 

“Who are these ‘others?’” Loghain asked, eyes popping with anger and desperation.

 

“I don’t know.  Of all the Sorcerer Supremes of all the dimensions, even those that are forces for good, very few will treat with me.  We humans are rather looked down upon throughout the omniverse.”

 

“Do you wonder why?” Gilariel said, not quite under her breath.

 

“No one wonders why,” Strange said, smiling.  “It would go better for the entire omniverse if all the Sorcerers Supreme were more willing to be cooperative, however.  All those of us who are dedicated to fighting the forces of evil, that is.”

 

“So I’ll never know what happened to him, no matter what.  So what good comes of telling the truth, the truth that I swore to him I would never reveal to a living soul?” Loghain said.

 

“Once you are a Sorcerer Supreme, you have no way of knowing what you may learn, and the secret was poisoning you.  I have known that since the day you promised to keep it.  What use is it to keep it now, here?  In my world, in my home, among these people, you are outside of the bounds where the secret would do any harm to your nation.”

 

“How do you know that it won’t?” Loghain said.

 

“Because I have cast a spell.  Nothing you have said can pass the lips of those who have heard it.  Including myself.  And the rest of these people standing motionless about us?  Have not heard a word.”

 

“Well.  Thank you.”

 

“I think there’s something to this spell thing,” Chasteyn said.  “There’s a few things I wanted to say about this whole confession, but I haven’t been able to say a word.”

 

“What would you say if you could say something?” Gilariel said.

 

“Oh, something about failing your --”  Chasteyn stopped short.  “I really can’t say it.  I actually _cannot.”_

 

“It’s probably best that way.”

 

“It was nice to meet the both of you face to face,” Strange said, taking a bow.  “We will meet again, but probably not soon.  As the French in my world or the Orlesians in your world say, _A bientot.”_   With his usual swirl of fancy blue light, he disappeared.

 

“Your Master is something of a showman,” Chasteyn said.

 

“Both of them are,” Loghain said.  “Maybe it’s a natural thing with sorcerers, but I’ve noticed now that I’m able to teleport short distances and bring things to my hand from other places there’s no fancy lights.”

 

“Where is this fellow we’re here to find?” Chasteyn asked.  “I know you know what he looks like -- you knew what _we_ looked like -- but how will we find him in a city this big?”

 

“I have his general location.  This isn’t it.  I wanted to look around the city a bit.  I’ve never been here.  Antiva and Orlais are the only places outside of Ferelden I’ve ever been, and again I’ve never really done any sightseeing in either.  All business, me, all my life.  I’ve heard how… ‘exotic’ Llomerryn is.  I’ve seen a little something of ‘exotic’ in my initial foray into Doctor Strange’s world.  I wondered just how it compared.  I confess this seems very much more in line with Thedas to me.”

 

 _“This_ doesn’t strike you as exotic?” Gilariel said.  “All these people?  These strange garments they wear, the colors, the buildings, the materials.  The women hardly wear any clothes at all, except for bits that trail behind them and bits that cover their faces!  Their _bodies_ are all exposed.”

 

“It’s definitely out of the ordinary by the standards of this dimension, but you haven’t seen Strange’s world yet.  Vehicles that move themselves.  An entire _nation’s_ worth of people crowding along the streets of just one city.  Buildings crammed so tightly together you can’t tell where they start and stop.  Buildings that reach so high they challenge the heavens, just built of concrete and steel and fronted in glass.  Nations of square mileage and populations so huge they make the whole of Thedas look small and insignificant.  And… apparently it’s all human.  No elves, no dwarves, no qunari.  Just human.”

 

Pepper squalled on his shoulder.

 

“Oh, yes.  And some dragons, but they seem to keep themselves disguised as humans so that they don’t frighten anyone and so they can live more peaceably with smaller appetites,” Loghain said.  “The humans aren’t even aware of them, apparently.  They believe they’re mythical.”

 

“That’s the way humans _force_ other beings to live.  As mythical beasts, wearing human faces,” Gilariel said.

 

“Actually, by understanding, the dragons frightened early humans on Strange’s world so badly that they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to evolve beyond the days of living in caves.  They chose to live as humans in order that the humans would be able to evolve and live naturally, as their species was intended, and to put less pressure on the native species, which were growing smaller in the current ecological environment.  Our dragons on our world didn’t eat in the same way, or think in the same way, apparently.  Not the same race of dragons.  Or species, or… well, I don’t know how it works out.  Breed, maybe?  As a multi-dimensional being, it’s hard to figure that kind of thing anyway.  I don’t even know if Strange is the same type of human as Chasteyn and I or not.” Loghain said.  “Strange has mentioned something about different types of elves in different dimensions, but I haven’t studied extra-dimensional beings beyond the basics.”

 

“That’s nice.  Lots of different, spicy flavors of elves, eh?” Chasteyn said.  “How close are we getting to our man?  Even with time stopped, this city has an odor to it that I just don’t care for.”

 

“It’s not that bad, it just… sort of smells like a farmyard.  A very _large_ farmyard,” Loghain said.  “Oh well, I’ve seen enough.  Never have been much of a tourist.”  He opened up a portal and they all walked through to a large, opulent chamber, in a mansion or a palace somewhere in the city.

 

“Good sweet Maker, what is this guy, some kind of Lord?” Chasteyn asked.  “How are you going to get him to leave this?”

 

“It shouldn’t be too difficult.  I don’t know much about the man, but what I do know is that this is not his home, though he may live within these walls,” Loghain said.

 

“Cryptic statement.”

 

“He’s a servant, I believe, of one form or another,” Loghain clarified.

 

“How do you know for sure?” Chasteyn said.

 

“For one thing, I’ve touched minds with him,” Loghain said.  “For another, I’ve seen him.  He’s an elf.”

 

 _“Oh,_ not another --” Chasteyn began, then caught Gilariel’s eye and cut himself short.

 

“Well, there are plenty of elven servants running about,” Gilariel said.  “Well, _not_ running about, but frozen in that state of motion, you know what I mean.”

 

“None of these are he,” Loghain said.  “He wouldn’t be a _common_ servant.  He would be more of a personal servant.  A valet, a private messenger.  A minstrel.  An assassin.”

 

“You don’t know which?  I thought you touched his mind?” Gilariel said.

 

“I didn’t go very far in.  The experience isn’t very comfortable for me, and I don’t believe in invading another person’s inner self without their knowledge and consent.  All I looked for was his name, so I would know how to address him.  You don’t make a very deep impression on a prospective student if you don’t at least know their name.”

 

“So we’re looking for a well-dressed elf, then?” Chasteyn said.

 

“Covered in gems.  Literally,” Loghain said.

 

“What do you mean ‘literally?’” Chasteyn said.

 

“It might be a Rivaini thing -- Since we showed up I’ve seen more than one person with facial piercings, but this fellow we’re looking for takes it to an extreme.  He’s got hoops on his eyebrows, he’s got them hanging from all parts of his ears, he’s got them in his nose, he’s got them in his lips, he’s got them through his cheeks, he’s got one in his chin.  He’s even got a jewel or two stuck on his teeth somehow.”

 

“Well, if he’s an assassin, he must not be too keen on attacking from stealth,” Chasteyn said.  _“Sounds_ like some kind of faggot.”

 

 _“Whatever_ his proclivities, if he comes with us he’s our brother, and he will be treated as such,” Loghain said in his hardest tone.  “Is that straight, Ser Chasteyn?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s straight,” Chasteyn said, looking away.

 

“All right, spread out.  Look for a youthful elven man with dark hair and many piercings.  He should be in this general vicinity.  We shouldn’t have to look outside this chamber, but there are a surprising number of people here,” Loghain said.

 

“I think this is him,” Gilariel said, gesturing to a man standing on a small sort of stage.

 

“Ah, yes that’s him,” Loghain said, taking a look.  “Unless he has a twin.  I’ll bring him out of time for a talk.”  He forked his fingers before the Eye of Agamotto on his chest and cast the spell and the young man blinked his shining green eyes rapidly as he stumbled over the words he had been in the midst of saying when time was arrested.

 

“Golden… hair… locks falling…  What in the bloody blue blazes?  Why is everyone not moving?  Is this some sort of party game?  I have to say _I_ don’t find it very amusing,” he said, panic setting in quickly as he surveyed his surroundings.

 

“Calm yourself, my boy,” Loghain said, raising a hand palm outward.  “We’ve come to speak with you privately, and you might say that things are this way so that we can have that _absolute_ privacy.  Time is standing still.  You and I and my companions all stand outside of time for now.  Everyone else is unharmed.  They will never even be aware that anything has happened.”

 

Shining green eyes locked on him.  “Magic?” he said in a shaky voice.

 

“Of a sort.  But tell me, have you ever heard of a mage who could do such a thing?” Loghain said.  The man shook his head.  “That’s because messing with time is beyond the laws of magic as we know them in our world.  But I am a sorcerer, not a mage.  I work by different rules.  I am teaching these two young people with me how to work magic by these rules.  I wish to teach you as well.”

 

“I’m not a mage,” Morston said, and licked his dry lips with his pierced tongue.

 

“Nor am I,” Loghain said.  “Until a few short months ago, I was a warrior, come to the end of his days, without the strength to lift his sword any longer.  Perhaps you’ve even heard of me, far away from my homeland as you be.  Loghain Mac Tir is my name.”

 

“I don’t -- wait… the knights who sit at my Lord’s table.  Sometimes _they_ speak the name.  Still, I don’t know who you are.”

 

“Nothing but an old man.  Who I may have been once upon a time is hardly important.  What I can do now, and what I can impart to you, is much more relevant.  I can show you the secrets of the universe and beyond, teach you powers you never dreamt existed, but it comes with a terrible responsibility.  The responsibility to give up your life as you know it to protect this world from the forces of evil that seek at all times to consume it for their own gain.”

 

“Wait a minute, wait -- start the pitch over.  You’ll give me all kinds of power in exchange for some sort of forced labor.  Do I get benefits?” Morston asked.  “Room and board?  Pay for play?  Medical leave?  Holiday time?”

 

Loghain laughed.  “Holiday time is a relative concept.  Once you can stop time and stretch space I suppose you can give yourself _something_ of a holiday, but many of the evil forces arrayed against us come from worlds where time doesn’t exist, and so stopping time does nothing to stop _them,_ so call it a holiday on-call.  Still, you won’t have to be on watch always, that’s why I’m building a _force_ of sorcerers -- so there’s a force of watchmen.  You can lead your own life within the confines of our separate sort of… _enclave_ , I’d guess you’d call it.  We can’t really reach out and be known to the rest of the world at large or there’d be a full-on Chantry panic.  There is definitely room and board, and though it does not start out very appealing it does get better as you apply yourself.  I am now at the level of basic Mastery, and have earned myself a straw pallet, a thin blanket, and a piece of folded rawhide on which to lay my head.  I assume that when I have become Sorcerer Supreme I will have finally earned a proper suit of pajamas, or at least pajama bottoms.  I can’t say for certain if there is medical leave, but all wounds and illnesses are likely to be taken care of immediately anyway.  I… do not know what ‘pay for play’ is, but I have to say there is no pay involved.  But you will not lack for comforts.  Learn enough of this type of magic and money will become utterly meaningless to you.  You can have anything you can dream of.”

 

“Including… strange creatures, apparently,” Morston said, looking at Nermal.

 

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not polite to stare?” Nermal said.  He snapped a tentacle in Morston’s face just inches shy of connecting to make him jump back.

 

“It talks,” Morston said.

 

“A great many creatures are every bit as intelligent as you or I,” Loghain said.  “I would get used to the idea quickly.  Not all of them speak, however.  Displacer Beasts like Nermal can speak naturally, but all Familiars such as Nermal can speak due to the magic of their connection to their sorcerer.  If you join us, you may have one yourself someday.”

 

“One like that?”

 

“No.  Familiars come in all shapes and sizes, from all different worlds.  You never know what may draw to you.  The exact workings of it are unknown to me, but a great deal depends upon matching personalities.  Nermal is rather terse and unpleasant, as you may have seen already.”

 

 _“You_ haven’t been that way,” Morston said.

 

“What I am and what I try to be are not the same thing at all times,” Loghain said.

 

Morston looked at Chasteyn and Gilariel.  “Has he been unpleasant with the two of you?”  Gilariel shook her head, Chasteyn nodded vigorously.  “Well.  Guess I get to take my chances.  Maybe it depends more on _my_ personality than yours.  You know, here in Rivain, magic isn’t seen as the _evil thing_ the rest of Thedas seems to think it is, Tevinter excluded.  We don’t like blood magic any more than you do, but we have our traditions, and we respect them.  I’ve always wished I had the gift.”

 

He took two steps down from the stage and into the middle of the chamber and looked around at the frozen people.  “You’re absolutely certain I’d be able to learn this kind of magic?”

 

“If you apply yourself.  You show a strong aptitude in terms of willpower and available manna.”

 

“Well.  Giving up one kind of servitude in exchange for another doesn’t sound like too difficult a change, and the goal seems worthwhile, and the benefits seem to my advantage.  I guess I’ll go along, take what you have to offer.  I certainly hope you’re not yanking my chain.  And of course there’s still the _very_ strong possibility that this is all a Fade dream, or of course I’ve just gone ‘round the bend.”

 

“None of the above.  Come.  My Master’s home is right through here,” Loghain said, and opened a portal to the Sanctum.

 

Morston looked at this hole in reality.  “Wow.  That _is_ a nifty trick.  If I didn’t believe you before, just showing me that would be a big help.  Can I really walk through that, into another place entirely?”

 

“Not just another place, another world.  That room is not in Thedas, it in a place called Earth, and it is very different _indeed_ to our world,” Loghain said.  “You will be staying in the house while you are there, to avoid distraction, but I am certain that a sort of field trip can be arranged so that you can see something of the world in which you are staying, as I did.  Time is as frozen there as it is here for now, however, and will remain so indefinitely.  We must push ourselves to learn the arcane arts as swiftly as possible.  Even with time stopped, time runs short.”

 

“I get it.  Let’s blow, Daddy-O,” Morston said, and ducked through the portal into the room in the other realm.  The others gave each other looks, then followed after him one by one.


	14. Team Spirit

Loghain had just enough time to get his new student settled before Doctor Strange appeared before him again.  “Come, my friend.  I have a new task for you.”

 

“A new task?  I have three new students to put through their paces.”

 

“Yes, but this is important.  It will help you a great deal, and it will save an entire world.  A very good bargain, wouldn’t you say?”

 

“But what about my students?”

 

“You started learning from a book, with no teacher whatsoever.  They will be just fine with an astral projection.”

 

“You want me to maintain a fully self-sustaining astral projection… from another world?” Loghain said.  “While I’m doing what, exactly?”

 

“Nothing you’re not very, very good at,” Strange said.  “This should be easy for you.  But first, I want you to make the sign of the Eye.”

 

Loghain grimaced, but forked both hands into the sign and held them in front of his chest.

 

“Very good.  Now make this gesture while focusing on this incantation: ‘ _Vida Victus Redivicci.’”_ And Strange described a circle in the air before himself with his hands and brought them back around to the starting point and down again.  Loghain mimicked the gesture as focused on the incantation.  A wind blew up around him but he couldn’t tell exactly what happened.

 

Strange looked him over critically.  “Hmm,” he said.

 

“What was that about?” Loghain said.

 

“Do you feel all right?” Strange said.

 

“I feel fine.  How am I supposed to feel?”

 

“Do you feel any _better_ than you did before?” Strange asked.

 

“I don’t know.  Should I?”

 

“Well, yes, but then, you’ve always been a strong healthy bastard.  It wasn’t a very strong youth spell, but you should be physically about age forty right now, which was a very good age for you.  But you don’t look very much changed.  That said, you’ve always looked older than your age.”

 

“I would take offense at that if it weren’t true.”

 

“Well… your hair looks a smidge darker.  I’m going to say it probably worked, even if it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.  You can do it again after you’ve built some power and it should work better.  Bring yourself back to your thirties or even your late twenties, perhaps.”

 

“I don’t think I need to go back that far,” Loghain said.

 

“Well, we’ll talk about that later.  In any event, part one complete, part two commencing.  This could be complicated.  In the Andrastian religion… it is preached that humans, elves, dwarves, and qunari… well, perhaps not even qunari… are the only creatures that have souls, correct?” Strange said, rubbing his hands together.

 

“Um… probably.  I’ve never really been to Chantry except to get married that one time.  Oh, and to stand while my daughter got married.”

 

“You’ve _never_ been Andrastian?  Even as a child?” Strange asked.

 

“You ‘met’ my mother.  Are you _surprised_ my parents kept me away from the Chantry?” Loghain said.

 

“Ah, I see.  The disapprobation of the Chantry against your Dalish parentage and your parents’ disapprobation of the Chantry…”

 

“Mother never even allowed herself to be _seen_ in town.  She didn’t want anyone to know I was half-blood.”

 

“All right then, so you don’t know much about traditional religion.  So… would you be surprised to learn that every creature, regardless of intellect, has a soul, the same as any human, no matter what any religion says about the matter?  A soul is made up of a type of energy, and all creatures great and small are made up of some type of this same energy.”

 

Loghain shrugged.  “Sounds reasonable to me.”

 

Strange smiled.  “Excellent.  I was expecting the usual fight.  It took a long time to bring me to an acceptance of this idea, and I had a basis in a scientific theory that wasn’t too far distant.  This is not an idea that humans are likely to accept in the wide scope.  Many other beings don’t like it, either.  Well, all creatures throughout all worlds are made up of some sort of this energy.  Some consist of nothing more than this energy.  Most of the rest are corporeal like you and I, and this corporeal form is typically mortal.  The energy that makes up the soul, the essence of the being, however, is not.  It goes on and on forever, immortal, immutable, and infinite.  You can cut away piece after piece of a soul and be left with no less than you started with.  Do you buy that?”

 

“It stretches my credulity somewhat, but… yes, I guess I will if you say so.”

 

“All right.  Now this is the really complicated part.  Loghain… a rift in time and space has opened between a number of closely-connected dimensions and shards of the souls of numerous magical creatures and warrior beings have crossed the dimensional lines and manifested themselves as paradoxes in the wrong worlds.  They are creatures out of time and they are wreaking havoc while time is frozen, and they must be stopped as quickly as possible.  If you do it, the soul shards will draw to you and bond with you, increasing your mana pool and giving you a force of creatures that will fight at your side whenever you require their services.”

 

“You said rifts opened when people messed with time and space,” Loghain said, thunderous brows drawing together.  “Did this happen because of you freezing time, or me drawing my students out of it?”

 

Strange shook his head.  “I swear to you that it did not.  What happened was that a neutron star -- a very powerful star -- that existed in all of these worlds simultaneously went supernova, creating these rifts and these paradoxes.  The star exploded, basically, releasing an extraordinary amount of energy that these dimensions couldn’t quite take all at once.  Things… tore.”

 

“So I’m to go around fighting and killing all these creatures, ‘drawing’ them… how many are there?  Is there any hope of getting them all?” Loghain said.

 

“It may not seem so, but though they have recreated corporeal form, they are not properly as they were.  They are decimating the ecosystems of the worlds they have come to because they eat, but they cannot reproduce.  Their numbers are limited to exactly what they were when they came through the rifts.  Fight them well and long enough, you will kill them all.  It may seem insurmountable, but you are the sort of man who takes mountains and crumbles them to dust.”

 

“How would I ever know if I’ve gotten them all if they’re traipsing through an entire world?”

 

“A very good question.  One to which I fortunately have a decent answer.  These creatures, even in their proper worlds, have an interesting trait: when they reach extinction level, the last member of their species receives the collective strength of its predecessors.  It’s called ‘Last One Syndrome.’  Not the most imaginative name, perhaps, but functional.  This ‘Last One’ is bigger and stronger than those that came before and gives off a sickly pinkish glow of light that is unmistakable from any other creature you have ever seen in your life.  When you see this iteration of a creature, you have reached the end of the line for that creature!  Of course, you still need to kill that last creature, which isn’t as easy as the others you’ve faced.  On the other hand, some creatures out there in these worlds will only have one iteration in the first place.  Creatures like Gamera, Zigra, Gaos, Barugon, Godzilla, and Guiron.  Creatures that… you won’t be able to take on for a long while yet.”

 

“Oh?  They sound pretty interesting to me.”

 

“Gamera is the one I think you should take on first.  He’s quite benevolent, really.  He shouldn’t be much problem for you compared to the others, and he’ll be great help to you in taking on the others -- fighting them for the good of the world is pretty much what he _does_.  Gamera is a two hundred foot-tall fire-breathing flying turtle with a shell harder than carbonate steel.  That’s… pretty damn hard.  You’ll need high-level offensive sorcery to take him down, and you haven’t learnt it yet.”

 

“But I _will_ be able to take it?”

 

“Indubitably.”

 

“All right.  Let’s get this undertaking underway.  How will I know which creatures are the ones that don’t belong --?  Oh, of course.  They’re the ones that aren’t frozen in time, right?”

 

“You’re catching on to this stuff, amateur.”

 

“How can I help it with such a wonderful teacher?” Loghain said dryly.  “All right, where are we headed?”

 

“Come with me,” Strange said, and opened a portal to a sunny, open plain.  A small group of people were waiting for them there.  “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of recruiting you some assistance.  These are warriors and mages from the worlds where these creatures come from, and they’re quite familiar with fighting them.  They should be able to help you a great deal.”

 

Loghain gave him a long look.  “If I will be able to take down giant flying turtles by myself with spells then why do I require help?” he said.

 

“Everyone needs help once in awhile,” Strange said.  “Besides, it’s good for you to expand your horizons, make some acquaintances from among the peoples of other dimensions.”  He stepped up and began making introductions.  He gestured to a serious-faced young woman with strawberry-blonde hair.  “This fine young lady goes by the name of ‘Lightning.’  Her real name is Claire Farron but she doesn’t care for it much.  This is her sister Serah.  Lightning is one of the finest warriors you’ll ever see, and her sister is an expert in the magical arts and a fine healer.  These are their friends Oerba Dia Vanille and… Phyllis Diller’s Husband.”

 

Loghain gave Strange a look, and the tall, dark-haired woman he had identified as Phyllis Diller’s Husband also gave him a look.  Strange cleared his throat and apologized.  “I’m sorry.  You’d have to be from my world to get that joke.  Actually, most people from my world might not get that joke, either.  Wong wouldn’t, and he knows all about Phyllis Diller and her husband.  Loghain, this is Fang.  Oerba Yun Fang.  She and Vanille are inseparable.  Fang is a warrior renowned, and an excellent saboteur.  Vanille is a skilled magician and a great synergist.”

 

“What’s a saboteur?  What’s a synergist?” Loghain said.

 

Fang took a half step forward and swung her double-bladed lance onto her shoulder.  “I’ll tell you what a saboteur is, mate.  A saboteur is the best thing you can have at your side in a fight.  We tear down the enemy, see?  Cut their protections, like.  Make it easier to hit the weak spots.  And maybe hit ‘em with a spot of the ol’ poison, too.”

 

“I see.  We have people like that in my world, too, we just… call them… ‘rogues,’” Loghain said.

 

“Fang is a bit different than a rogue, Loghain.  She uses magic to do her sabotage,” Strange said.

 

Vanille spoke up.  “And a synergist uses similar magic to put protections on her party.  Kind of like… the ‘anti-saboteur.’”  She smiled brightly and rubbed one moccasin-covered foot against the back of her other leg.

 

Strange went on with his introductions.  “This young man is Snow Villiers, Serah’s husband.  He is a sentinel, predominantly, exactly the man you want on your side when defense is at premium.  This group of young people are all from the world of Gran Pulse, though Lightning, Serah, and Snow were born in a world called Cocoon, which was not actually a separate dimension.  They have been through… a very great deal, over a very long period of time, and the bonds between them are strong.  They are not sorcerers, but they have strong magical abilities, which are rare gifts in their world, bestowed by the servants of their gods.  Their gods are rather selfish creatures, really, but Lightning and her friends pretty much put an end to that.  Good to have a god-killer on your side, don’t you think?”

 

“This woman actually killed a god?” Loghain said.

 

“She was more than merely human at the time, but yes, essentially, though the question remains as to whether he is actually dead or merely asleep and rebuilding his power,” Strange said.  “Some of her ‘more than merely human’ power remains, but she is not the great, god-like creature she was.  Still, you should find her not at all lacking in skill and courage.”

 

“I don’t doubt it.  Who are the rest?” Loghain asked.

 

“Well, this man’s name is Basch, he’s a knight in the Dalmascan order.  The two tall ladies with the unusual rabbit-like ears are beings known as viera, from the same world as Basch.  They are Fran and Krjn, expert weapons masters both of them.  And our last guests, Sora and the miq’ote Tekat’si.”  Strange gestured to a young lad with spiked blond hair and a young woman with the perked ears and long furry tail of a cat.  “Sora is something of an amateur expert in paradoxes and Tekat’si is a Sister of the Order of the Seeress in her world, and she’s studying to be a Guardian of the Seeress, who is also the Sorcerer Supreme.  Yeul, as a matter of fact.  Yeul is the Sorcerer Supreme for two of these worlds.  I thought you might enjoy talking to a few of those who have known her.”

 

“Yeul is the Sorcerer Supreme for more than one world?” Loghain asked.

 

“Yes.  She is not quite the same as the rest of us.  One of her realms was destroyed and remade anew, but the original continues in an alternate dimension where it was never destroyed.  In one world Yeul was brought out of the curse of the Seeress and no longer has to die and be endlessly reborn… but in most cases, Yeul is cursed as she always was.”

 

“So there’s… actually more than one Yeul,” Loghain said.

 

“Yes.  There may be more than one _you,_ as well,” Strange said.  “The difference being that Yeul’s fate is the same in all forms.  In another dimension, you may have been fated to live as a farmer all your life, with the peaceful existence you longed for.”

 

“And the others?” Loghain said, choosing to ignore the idea that he might have lead his ideal life in some other world.

 

“Friends of mine, from my own world.  Mister Anthony Stark, in the fancy suit of armor, Ms. Jennifer Walters, Mister James Howlett --”

 

“Call me ‘Logan,” the short, burly man said in a voice very reminiscent of the dwarf Oghren’s.  Loghain hadn’t heard that voice in years.

 

“-- Miss Ororo Munroe, Mister Reed Richards, a great scientist who will be studying the results of the paradox on these creatures, to determine if there have been any significant changes from their natural state, Doctor David Banner, a nuclear physicist who nevertheless you will find quite helpful to you against the _stronger_ creatures as you proceed, Mister Remy LeBeau, Mister Wade Wilson, Mister Benjamin Grimm, Mister Jonathan Storm, and the marvelous Carol Danvers.  This is Master Kurt Wagner, an expert swordsman, and this young lady is Melissa Gold.  And _this_ is Colonel Nicholas Joseph Fury.  I think you and he will get along well.”

 

“Colonel?  That sounds like a rank.  You’re military?” Loghain said to the grizzled man with the eye patch.

 

“To the core.  Commander of S.H.I.E.L.D., that’s Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate.  We’re the world’s greatest peacekeeping headquarters, and we work with all the capes.  We might end up working with _you_ at some point if you really do become Sorcerer Supreme,” Fury said.

 

“I’m not going to be Sorcerer Supreme of your world,” Loghain said.

 

“But you’ll probably stay in touch with Dr. Strange.  If he calls in favors from you, maybe we can call in favors from him.  Not that he owes us many.”

 

“Well, you’re honest.”

 

“You don’t look like the kind of man who appreciates double-talk.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

 _“I_ notice you’re not a man who takes surprise easy,” Ben Grimm said.  “You don’t seem at all put out by, uh… some our appearances.  Like mine.”

 

“The Doctor hasn’t gone into depth about the subject, but he has explained to me something of your world’s metahuman community and how it may come to pass.  I assume you are mutants or gained your appearance through accident or experiment.”

 

“I am a mutant, mein freund,” the devilish-looking Kurt Wagner said.  “So are some uf my less-obvious friends here.”  White-haired Ororo Munroe, black and red-eyed Remy LeBeau, and stocky but otherwise fairly ordinary-looking Logan Howlet all raised their hands.  Green-skinned and green-haired Jennifer Walters did not, however.

 

“I received a blood transfusion from my cousin David here,” she said, with a rueful smile.  “My verdigris used to happen only when I was angered, but now it’s permanent.  Fortunately I retain my personality and intellect.  My cousin doesn’t, but fortunately for him, his transformation still only happens when he‘s angered.  And fortunately for _us,_ his transformation is under the control of Doctor Strange.  The only one who _can_ control him.”

 

“A blood transfusion can do that to you?” Loghain said.

 

“When you get one from a man who has been infected with gamma radiation, then yes, apparently so,” Walters said.  “The green is just an unpleasant side effect.  It’s got its good side and I’ve put it to good use, but I wouldn’t really recommend it.”

 

“My powers an’ my good looks come from… well, an accidental experiment,” Ben Grimm said.  “Or an experimental accident, either way.  I was an astronaut -- do you know what those are?  I flew rockets up into space -- and I flew my friends out there to test a brand-spankin’-new one.  Anyways, we got bombarded with some kind of cosmic rays, and now… I’m a real rock-head.  Funny thing is, they’ve sent lots and lots of guys up after us, and ain’t a one of ‘em come back changed.”

 

“What happened to the others who were with you?” Loghain asked.

 

Ben shrugged.  “Reed was one of ‘em.  Johnny was another.  Reed’s wife, Sue, Johnny’s big sis, rounded out the crew.  You can’t talk to her right now, Doc left her frozen for some reason, but Reed and Johnny are standin’ right there.”

 

Loghain looked at the young man named Jonathan Storm, who stood next to the large rock construct that had replaced the once fully-human Benjamin Grimm.  Johnny saw his look, smiled, and burst into flame.  Unsettled, Loghain looked at Mr. Reed Richards, who had a far more sedate appearance, and hoped what he would see next wouldn’t push him over the edge.

 

“What trick have _you_ got up your sleeve?” he asked.

 

Richards smiled.  “Instead of answering that, how about we just shake on it?” he said.  They were roughly ten feet apart, so Loghain took a step in his direction.  “Oh no, do stay put.  I’ll come to you.”  And his arm stretched the full ten feet.

 

“Ah ha.  Yeah.  That’s freaky,” Loghain said.  “You can take your arm back, now, Ser.”

 

Richards shrugged and retracted his arm.  “Sue can generate force fields and turn herself invisible.  The force fields might have been rather valuable to you, actually.  I don’t know why Strange didn’t choose to bring her along.”

 

“Mr. Villiers does something similar,” Strange said.  “I felt that his powers would be sufficient, and I thought that breaking up well-formed teams a bit would… encourage intermingling.  Everyone could use a little diversity in their lives, not just my student.”

 

“Well, it ain’t a bad thing to meet new people,” Ben said.

 

“I quite look forward to it,” Ororo Munroe said.  “I am fascinated to be working with individuals from other dimensions, and I relish the thought of encountering creatures from other realms as well.”

 

“There’s certainly a great deal of diversity in attire,” Loghain said.  “I’ve never seen such outfits.  Downright outlandish.  And… some of them don’t seem particularly practical for battle conditions.”  He looked at Fang’s flowing blue toga and the scanty garb of the two viera.  Munroe’s white uniform as well struck him as unusually scanty, and the cape attached from her neck to her wrists seemed downright dangerous.  Nobody seemed to be wearing real armor, not even the knight, with the exception of Ser Stark, an odd suit of armor done in red and gold that… seemed to have no way in and out of it.  Loghain figured that he and Mr. Villiers would be exercising a lot of defensive magic on their behalf.

 

“Nevertheless, my friend, you will find every one of them quite well battle-tested,” Strange said.  “The _crème de le crème,_ you might say, at least if French didn’t give you the willies.  And not only are they some of the finest fighters in any world you will ever find yourself in, but they are also quite accustomed to _strangeness_ and _surprises.”_

 

“Going to be a lot of both, then, I take it?” Loghain said.  “All right.  It’s small for an army, but if I’m supposed to bring unnumbered species to extinction, I’ll take whatever I can get.  But if they’re killing these things along with me, how am I supposed to get the souls?”

 

“They’ll draw to your power as a sorcerer, as a warrior, and to… well, to that ‘animal magnetism’ that you possess,” Strange said.  “Having all three makes it inevitable.”

 

 _“‘Animal magnetism.’_ Not the kind that draws women.  Just the kind that makes barn cats drop mice at my feet and dogs urinate submissively when I’m near,” Loghain said with a snort.

 

“We take what life brings us,” Strange said merrily.  He clapped his hands together.  “Anyway, I dropped you here because this area is teeming with your foes, most fairly small to start you off without mishap.  Be cautious out for Svarogs and Alpha Lobos and don’t go near the mountains yet because Gaos is in hiding there, and he’ll make mince meat of every last one of you without the proper sorcery and _Gamera_ to draw his attention away from you.  Oh -- and don’t look Beholders in the eyes or let them breathe on you or you’ll turn to stone.”

 

With that, he vanished in a swirl of blue light.  Fury shook his head.  “That guy.  What a load.  He could fix every problem in the world with a snap of his fingers, but he won’t.  _‘The Vishanti won’t_ let _me.’_ Bull.”

 

“Much as I respect my Master, I don’t believe he has as great a command of sorcery as you think he does,” Loghain said.  _“He’s_ still a student, too.”

 

“Oh.  Great.  The blind leadin’ the blind.  That makes me feel _real_ good about our chances next time Dormammu breaks free or _Galactus_ comes callin’.”

 

“Well.  I don’t know much about your fighting abilities, but then I don’t know anything about our foes, either, so I can’t do much about tactics right now anyway.  I suppose we should just get set up and get started and find out about each other by doing.  Mr. Richards, you… have some sort of laboratory setup, I take it?” Loghain said.

 

“A mobile lab, yes,” Richards said.  “The Doctor said you could conjure it here for me.  It is in your Master’s arena at the moment, he informed me.”

 

“How large is it?  It shouldn’t matter, but I haven’t conjured anything much larger than my sword before.”

 

“Have you ever seen a Deuce and a Half?” Richards said.

 

“I… don’t know what that is,” Loghain said.

 

“Well, it’s a vehicle, like an automobile?  Only… much larger.  I hope that won’t prove to be too difficult for you.”

 

“Well… it shouldn’t.  If you’ll give me a moment.”  Loghain raised his hands and concentrated his mental focus on the arena back in the sanctum, found the army truck, and brought it to the plain through telekinesis.  The process left him winded.

 

“That’s amazing.  I couldn’t teleport from one dimension to another,” Kurt Wagner said.  “You just brought a monstrous _truck_ here from our world, and they say you’re an amateur?”

 

“Well, I’m a Master sorcerer, I’m just not Sorcerer Supreme yet.  That’s what I need to be to save my world.  We don’t _have_ a Sorcerer Supreme for some reason.”

 

“Yeah, well watch yourself,” Fury said.  “As soon as you have that kind of power, the _real_ threats will come knockin’ at your door.  Just lookin’ for a taste of what ya got.”

 

“Yes.  Doctor Strange has warned me of this.”

 

“You don’t have Capes in your world?” Melissa Gold said.

 

“Capes?” Loghain said.

 

“You know.  Supers.  People with powers.”

 

“Oh.  Well, yes, we do.  We have mages.  They draw upon their connection to another realm called the Fade to produce magic, but it’s not the same as sorcery.  They are very dangerous without proper training.  There are denizens of the Fade who use their connection to cross over to my world, possess the mage, and wreak havoc.  It never ends well for anyone involved, least of all the mage.  It used to be we feared them and kept them locked away in places called Circles -- schools where they were trained and watched closely.  Now they’re allowed to live freely, as long as they receive the same schooling, but I cannot say that they’re not still feared and… reviled.”

 

“That’s the same with us,” Melissa said.  “Some of us more than others.”

 

“Some of us _deserve_ it more than others,” James “Logan” Howlett said.  “You don’t know _nothin’_ ‘bout bein’ _reviled_ for somethin’ you ain’t got nothin’ to do with _,_ Songbird.”

 

“Wolverine, peace,” Ororo said, raising a hand to him.  “Songbird has worked to atone for her past for a long time now, and has done well.  She has led as difficult a life as any of us.”

 

Nermal appeared, right in front of Loghain and in front of all these new people who had never seen a Displacer Beast before.  “Hey, uh, Boss Man, you left us behind again.  Pepper’s pissed, and you ain’t supposed to leave the Beef Brisket for any real length a’ time or she might not imprint to ya later.  An’ that would be a _real shame.”_

 

“A talking monster!” Lightning Farron said, drawing her sword.  She wasn’t the only one preparing for a fight.  Loghain held up his hands.

 

“Please, please, it’s all right.  This is just my familiar.  His name is Nermal.  He’s a perfectly… well, just don’t mind him at all.  Treat him as one more of the warriors among us.  He shares my power and… a great deal of my personality.  He just shows it more.”

 

He opened a portal back to the Sanctum and Pepper flew through to his shoulder, squawking shrilly and angrily.  “Yes, my friend, I’m sorry, but I didn’t think you’d really _want_ to be here.  It sounds like it’s going to be rather tedious, overall.”

 

“Is that a… _dragon?”_ Melissa said, green eyes lighting up.

 

“A very small one, yes,” Loghain said.  “Pepper is quite young, but full-sized.”

 

“Wow!  I mean, I’ve seen Fin Fang Foom, but… he’s an alien, and… somehow I’ve never been all that impressed.  A real, live _dragon?_ Are there _big_ ones?”

 

“Very, and very many varieties.  I have been informed many times over that they are the most numerous, widespread, and intelligent sentient beings throughout the omniverse,” Loghain said.  “People seem to think I’m drawn to dragons and want to know all there is to know about them.  I do admit I find them interesting.  If you’ll excuse me for a moment, there’s someone else I’m afraid I have to collect.”

 

He disappeared into the portal, leaving the group outside staring uncomfortably at the giant purple-black Displacer Beast Pack Lord that sat there grinning and washing its paws and tentacles while it waited for its master.  When Loghain returned he carried in his hands a small puppy of dark russet color with a white splash on her snout and on her chest.  She hardly seemed to care that she was off the ground.  She was curled up for a nap, just ready to close her eyes.

 

“Aw, a puppy!” Melissa said.

 

“You goin’ soft, Songbird?” Howlett said, derisively.

 

“It’s a cute puppy!” Melissa snapped back.  “Anyone can see that.  Even _you,_ I bet.”

 

“How you gon’ carry dat li’l pup ‘roun’ while we all be fightin’, mon ami?” the red and black-eyed Remy LeBeau said.  It wasn’t _quite_ an Orlesian accent as Loghain was familiar with them, but it sent a chill down his spine nevertheless.

 

“I’ll have to make a sling for her, I guess,” he said, shoving his reaction behind him.  “I meant to leave her behind, but Nermal’s right, I’m really not supposed to be away from her or she won’t imprint.”

 

“Imprint?” Serah Farron said.

 

“Triumph here is a mabari, a special breed of dog from my homeland.  A wardog, of extremely high intelligence.  Once she chooses a master, she’ll be loyal to them unto death.  We call it imprinting.  Doctor Strange means for her to imprint to me, but there’s really no way to _make_ it happen -- not even with magic.  The only thing I can do is treat her well and be around her as much as possible.  I was going to leave her with my astral projection, but that doesn’t have a scent.  It wouldn’t work.”

 

“How will you know when she’s imprinted?” Melissa said, coming a few steps closer.

 

“Well, she’s too small to imprint right now.  And she probably won’t get any bigger.  Not until time starts up again.  I hatched Pepper from an egg, and _he_ matured, but Doctor Strange _stopped_ time so that my foe wouldn’t progess any further and so _I_ wouldn’t get any older and creakier.  I never asked and he never said, but I think now that Pepper must have come from a dimension outside of time, meaning time was always meaningless to him.  I thought that would mean that he would be born fully mature, since there is only now in such places, but I don’t understand the first _thing_ about timelessness.  But if I am correct, Triumph won’t grow up until time is free to flow again.”

 

“When will _that_ be?” Fury said.

 

“I don’t know.  Soon, I hope.”

 

“Sooner, if we stop jawin’ and start killin’,” Fury said.  “Come on, people.  Let’s find these critters and get this operation underway.”


	15. School of Hard Knocks

“Master, you’re… _transparent!”_ Gilariel said, eyes wide.  It was not quite the right word.  He was not a piece of plastic wrap, apparent but completely see-through, he was instead completely visible, every detail and color, but you could see the background obscured through him.  He was translucent.

 

Loghain bowed slightly at the waist.  “I am not physically present here with you, my students.  My own Master, Doctor Strange, has other business for me that will keep me away for some time, though I will make time for your physical training in the evenings if and when I can.  In the meantime you are stuck with one of my astral projections, which is just the same as my physical presence, without the ability to kick you around in any way.  At least physically.  But I retain all my abilities as a sorcerer, and I can teach you just as well.  We are still on the basics of basics, anyway.”

 

“I notice we’re in a group now,” Chasteyn said.  “Can’t handle us one at a time when you’re nothing but a specter?”

 

“At the time, I am currently engaged in study with my Master on advanced offensive sorcery.  Which means I am maintaining a second astral form at this time.  If you think maintaining even _one_ autonomous astral form is easy, you’ve got another think coming.  I could just have you study this stuff on your own as I did, but since you _were_ smart enough to accept a teacher, as I _wasn’t_ at first, I feel you should have one.  I rather think my initial progress was guided from afar as it is so that I would buy into this bullshit a little quicker.”

 

“So what are we learning, Daddy-O?” Morston said.  “How _not_ to be seen, like you?  That could come in handy.”

 

“I’m afraid not.  That is further down the line for you.  Today we’ll be working on basic useful sorcery, some of which can be used offensively, and some of which can be used _defensively_.  Its primary focus is on basic survival.  The creation of fire, the levitation of heavy objects -- although you may find that you cannot levitate anything of _particularly_ great weight at first -- the growth of seeds and plants to full maturity instantly.  All of these of great import to you during a survival situation, and all quite remarkably easy to do.”

 

“The summoning of flame is a very basic skill to any mage,” Gilariel said.  “Levitation of objects is harder, but not impossible.  Instant plant growth… if we could do that, people might not _hate_ us any longer.”

 

“Well, I don’t know how _mages_ do these things, but you should find these spells easy enough.  If I can do these things, _everyone_ should find them quite doable.”

 

“All right, Big Daddy.  What’s the score?” Morston said.

 

“I beg your pardon?” Loghain said.

 

“How do we start?” Morston said.

 

“With the very simplest of spells.  Fire.”  He taught them the incantation.  “Now focus on those words within your mind, and as you concentrate, visualize yourself pushing the force of the words through your mind and down your arms and out your fingers.”

 

“Oh, bull!” Chasteyn said, dropping his hands immediately.

 

“My initial reaction exactly, Serrah Chasteyn,” Loghain said, “and yet in a matter of seconds I found myself setting my textbook afire all the same.  Just trust in me and try it.”

 

“It’s not… _so_ different to what I’m used to,” Gilariel said.  “We don’t use incantations most of the time and we usually use a staff to focus ourselves, but this is still quite similar.”

 

“Then show us how it’s done,” Morston said.

 

She closed her eyes and focused.  She focused on the incantation on her mind and sent the energy coursing down her hands into her fingertips.  Flame burst forth from her hands.

 

“Very well done,” Loghain said.  “Now let’s see the rest of you do it.”

 

Chasteyn sat with his arms folded.  “Easy enough for a mage.  But I’d like to see the _other_ elf do it!” he said.

 

Morston held out his hands and closed his eyes.  He focused on the incantation in his mind and visualized the energies flowing from mind to body, down his arms and to his fingers.  In a few seconds, his hands burst into flame.

 

 _“You_ did that somehow, Mac Tir,” Chasteyn said.  “Pumped _your_ power through him.”

 

“I did nothing, but I know I can’t convince you of that.  Think of the incantation and feel the power for yourself, Chasteyn.  You can do this, too.  Strange wouldn’t have chosen you if you couldn’t.”

 

Chasteyn shook his head and muttered under his breath.  “This is such horseshit.”  Still, he held out his hands.  He heard the strange words in his head.  He felt nothing.

 

Loghain reached out and put his own hands beneath Chasteyn’s.  They weren’t touching, they were simply there, beneath, unusually warm and very large and powerful.  “You _can_ do this, Chasteyn.  Focus on the words.  _Concentrate._ Feel the power.  It’s your power.  It doesn’t come from anywhere or anything else.”

 

“Oh the shit’s piling deeper,” Chasteyn said.  “And left my waders way back home in South Reach.”

 

Loghain’s astral projection hauled off and slapped him upside the head.  Chasteyn raised a hand to feel the spot.  “I thought you said you couldn’t hit us physically!” he said.

 

“I didn’t think I could.  It’s a wonder what you can do when properly peeved.  Now quit complaining and get to getting!  _Concentrate!_ You’re not the only person in this room who _can’t do it!_ You’ve already had a few days of training on this and _Morston,_ who _hasn’t,_ got it before you!”

 

“Yelling at the guy isn’t gonna make him learn any quicker,” Morston said.

 

Loghain pointed at him without taking his ethereal eyes from Chasteyn’s.  “Not a word, Morston.  This is not a matter of _learning,_ Chasteyn.  This is _in_ you.  Nothing will teach you what’s already inside.  You just have to get off your ass and _do_ it.”

 

“All right, all right!” Chasteyn said.  “Concentrate, right?  That’s all it takes.  Think the words and feel the power.”  He shook his shoulders and closed his eyes.  He held out his hands.  There was a strange sort of strength in his head, he could feel it if he tried hard enough, but it had to be just a product of concentration itself, not this bullshit incantation.  Still, he didn’t want to get hit again.  It was somehow ten times more humiliating when it came from a ghost.  So even though he retained strong doubts, he tried to send that feeling of strength down through his body and into his arms.  He opened his eyes just in time to witness his hands alighting.

 

“There, he did it, no sweat.  You didn’t really need to bust his chops to get him there, did you?” Morston said.

 

Loghain rounded upon the elf.  “If you say one more word you’ll be running to Doctor Strange for the extraction of my astral boot from your physical ass,” he said.  He turned back to Chasteyn.  “That was very well done,” he said.  “Keep on like that and we’ll have no further problem.  I am here to teach you sorcery but I am also here to teach you discipline and respect.”

 

“Respect for power?” Morston said.

 

“Respect for _order,”_ Loghain said.  “There is an order to all things and all life.  If you step outside that order you get anarchy.  Anarchy breeds chaos, death, and destruction.  We are here to be the _guardians_ of _order._ If you don’t respect order you don’t belong here.”

 

“Is that what we are, really?” Morston said.  “I thought we defended the world from demons.”

 

“Demons from worlds without order, who seek to bring their chaos to ours,” Loghain said.  “These are not _Fade_ demons.  These are creatures of power and horror unimaginable, from realms you should _hope_ you will never visit.”

 

“Isn’t chaos a natural force in all worlds?” Gilariel said.  “I mean, we have death, and war, and disorder.  These things are _chaos…”_

 

“Chaos is natural and even necessary in proper balance, and in any world where there are free-thinking beings there will be disorder.  We are tasked with maintaining the proper balance of chaos in our right worlds, and keeping out the major threats from other worlds.  We are not supposed to involve ourselves in the wars of men, and we are not meant to use our powers to stop or provide too much relief to natural disasters.  Natural disasters are ‘meant’ to happen.  We are supposed to let them.  Wars are the affairs of ordinary men, and we are beyond them.  We cannot use our power to choose sides or the balance of power in the world will shift.  That, too, is why we must remain secretive.  Governments would use us if they could.”

 

“Oh, surely they couldn’t make us…” Chasteyn said.

 

“Not with armies,” Loghain said.  “But do you think my daughter couldn’t bat her big blue eyes to get me to give Ferelden some magical aid?  She’s still the Queen, you know.  The Dalish would almost surely work on Gilariel if they knew.  Rivain might try to use any loyalty Morston has to them to get what they can out of us.  And do you think the Chantry wouldn’t ask favors of one of their Templars?  Don’t kid yourself.”

 

“I see what you mean.  I don’t hold much fealty to my former Lords, but I know they’d try every trick in the book to get some of this power you’re offering,” Morston said.  “They’d kill for it.”

 

“They’d go to war on a world-wide scale for it,” Loghain said.  “They’d face down anybody for it; the Tevinters, the Qunari.  Anybody.  And everybody.  And if they _had_ it, they’d rule the world.”

 

“What would happen then if a sorcerer forsook their vows and took their power to the people?” Gilariel said.

 

“That would depend,” Loghain said.  “If they kept the secrets of their power to themselves.  If they kept to the limitations the Vishanti set for us.  If they worked good in the world, within bounds, we’d let them be.  Otherwise, they’d become our enemies, and one more thing we’d be forced to hunt.”

 

“Who or what are the Vishanti?” Morston said.

 

Loghain shook his head.  _“That_ I am not certain of.  At this time I believe they may have been a triumvirate of Sorcerers Supreme, an extremely powerful cadre of apparently immortal beings of godlike power.  I don’t know if they originated the powers of sorcery, but they created many of the relics we use to augment our abilities and we call upon them to gain power when we need it, almost as though they were our own special gods of sorcery.  They set down the laws for us to adhere to, but we are free-thinking and free-acting creatures.  There is nothing stopping us from going astray except our own morality.”

 

“What are these laws?” Gilariel said.

 

“Maintain the balance of chaos -- life and death, peace and disaster.  Do no harm to innocents with your given powers.  Maintain the boundaries of spacetime.  It’s really very simple and easy to live by.”

 

“What does the last one mean?  ‘Maintain the boundaries of spacetime?’” Chasteyn said.

 

“In terms I understand, so I know everyone else would, too; if there were another instance like the Breach, it would be our responsibility to take care of it.  Or if there were a paradox -- a creature or an object that doesn’t belong in this time and place -- we would take care of it.”

 

Chasteyn snorted.  “Take on Corypheus?  No thank you!”

 

“The Inquisitor and his friends took care of him.  He would be no great problem for Master sorcerers, even with the orb he carried that enhanced his powers.  But you are a long way from Master sorcerers, so we need to get moving.  I want you to practice that spell.  I want it to come real naturally to you.  Someday that simple little spell may just save your life.”  He sat down behind the desk at the head of the room and kicked his legs up onto the desktop.  Even though they were metaphysical, his heavy boots still made a very solid thunk on the teakwood surface.

 

Gilariel began to practice, the men began to talk in hushed voices.  “This fellow reminds me of my old Drill Master,” Chasteyn said, “but then that doesn’t exactly come unexpectedly.  Loghain Mac Tir had a reputation for _hard-assery_ that was infamous before my birth.”

 

“I’ve noticed the man is a bit wicked,” Morston said.  “Seems to be rather accustomed to being obeyed.  He was some kind of High and Mighty in your land?  I’ve heard the name, but don’t really know what it means.”

 

“His daughter is our Queen.  _He’s_ a traitor.”

 

“Hmph.”

 

 _“Hmph?_ That’s all you can say?”

 

“None of my business.  Neither is his teaching style, really.  I came here for enlightenment.  He’s here to teach, and if I have to learn from a rat bastard then that’s what I have to do.  Who he’s been and what he’s done really isn’t anything to me.  Who he is now is more to the point, and as long as he doesn’t become _too_ abusive, I think I’ll get along with him just fine.”

 

“What do you consider ‘too abusive?’” Chasteyn said.  “He struck _me._ With a _non-physical hand._ It didn’t hurt so much as it was humiliating, which was far, far worse.”

 

“You forget, my friend.  I’m an elf.  Getting slapped open-handed upside the face or beat down with hard words is hardly the most abuse I’ve ever taken.”

 

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind if you don’t _shut up and get to work,”_ Loghain said, without moving a muscle from the front of the room.  Morston shrugged and began to practice casting flames.  Chasteyn gave Loghain one hateful look so dirty it would require its own cleaning service and turned his concentration to his own studies.

 

In another room of the sanctum, Loghain was having educational difficulties of his own.  Doctor Strange was trying to teach him how to split the atom with his mind.  This, he said, would allow him to kill almost anything, and in large numbers.  If he was able to control and contain the natural radiation that occurred from this, it would be one of his most potent basic weapons.

 

“You’re a bit out of focus, Loghain,” Strange said.

 

Loghain realized his astral projection was fading out and so he snapped into focus sharply.  “I’m sorry, Master.  It’s difficult, keeping up with three things at once.”

 

“It is indeed.  Especially when you expend so much effort on making certain that your astral form has the physical ability to interact with your students.  I’ve never heard of such a thing before, you know.  You must have employed intensive powers of concentration, Loghain.  Astounding.”

 

“You hit me over the head with an astral brick before we were working together,” Loghain pointed out.

 

“That was the parchment.  It’s easy enough to effect the mass density of an object -- basic sorcery, really, though I haven’t bothered with teaching you that yet, since it isn’t really necessary for you at this point.  I teleported the parchment to your location, affected its density to make it heavy and dropped it on your head, then returned it to its normal mass.  What you did should be impossible for a human being.  I can’t even imagine the powers of concentration involved.”

 

“Uhng.  I wish I could concentrate on _this_ so easily.  You ask me to accept the existence of a particle of matter too small be seen, and then you ask me to split it in half with my mind.  All while keeping the explosion and the resultant radiation contained, _also_ with my mind.  That’s a lot to take in all at once.”

 

“I’m afraid this is the most basic thing I can teach you at this level,” Strange said.

 

Loghain huffed.  “Yes, so basic it isn’t even a spell, just _‘advanced telekinesis.’”_

 

“It only gets more difficult from here,” Strange said, not without some sympathy in his tone of voice.

 

“Will one of these… atomic or what did you say?  ‘Nuclear’ explosions?  Help me destroy one of these giant creatures you’re pitting me against in those other dimensions you want me to cleanse?  Or against any of my potential enemies, like that Dormammu fellow?”

 

“No,” Strange said, casting his eyes down.  “Very unlikely, at least.  Gamera absorbs radiation to feed himself -- he would only grow stronger.  Dormammu has no actual physical presence, so he has no atoms to split and no body to be effected by radiation.  Most of the larger creatures like Godzilla and Barugon were created by nuclear radiation in the first place.  You _could_ try tearing them to pieces with this sort of telekinesis, and it may be functional.  However, Zigra is known to regenerate and Gamera is highly regenerative as well.  The powers of the others are not well documented.  You don’t want to end up with a _dozen_ of these creatures where once you only had _one_ to deal with.”

 

“I see.  So what good is it, then, if it kills indiscriminately as you say it does?”

 

“You have the power to contain its fury, and you may have need of it at some point in the future, but only as a last resort.  Even contained, it is too dangerous to innocent lives to use without care.”

 

“So no one-shot wipeout to these little bastards running around the pampas you dumped me onto with all those freaky people.”

 

“No.  It will destroy the environment and every other creature living there, in or out of time.”

 

“I see.  Damn.  Well, then it’s useless.”

 

“As I said, you may find that you require this power, somewhere down the line, when all other recourses have failed you.”

 

“But this isn’t as powerful as the other ‘advanced offensive sorcery’ powers you’re going to teach me after this, eh?” Loghain said, with one dark brow highly elevated.

 

Strange sighed and looked toward the vaulted ceiling.  “It’s not so much a scale of power, but in how they function.  Splitting at the atomic level will kill almost any physical creature.  Regenerative ‘monsters’ with the ability to absorb radiation are the one exception to this.  Creatures like Dormammu, who are made not of mass but of thought, are another matter entirely.”

 

“Made of thought?  How can he be made of thought?” Loghain said.

 

Strange sighed again and sat forward with his fingers steepled on the desktop.  “The realm of the Dark Dimension is a realm of thought, not matter.  It exists because the extreme weight of people’s fear gave life and substance to an entire world.”

 

“Wait.  So none of it’s real?  It’s all just a nightmare?  Dormammu?  Clea?” Loghain said.

 

Strange shook his head.  “No.  Not now.  Since the dawn of thought, the Dark Dimension has been growing.  All sentient beings in all worlds know Fear.  It is the oldest and most basic emotion.  _Non-_ sentient beings know it.  But sentient beings are unique in that when they do not have a face to put to their fears, they make one up for themselves.  And this fear of the unknown grows stronger and stronger with time.  It builds churches, raises gods, inflicts Dark Ages and Inquisitions…  And these thoughts, from so many worlds and so many peoples, have gathered together over time to create the Dark Dimension.  The weight of thought made _real.”_

 

“So Dormammu is nothing but a thought.  But… how can a thought exist if no one is thinking about him?  _I_ never knew he existed.  Can’t you just find the people that believe in him and convince them that he isn’t _real?”_

 

“Very few people know about his existence outside of the Dark Dimension itself,” Strange said.  “The truth of the matter is that he is a thought that now exists independently of the minds that created him.”

 

“Aw, shit.”

 

“Precisely.”


End file.
